PROHIBITION 
MOVEMENT 

f  ITS  BROADER  BEARINGS 
UPON  OUR  SOCIAL,  COMMERCIAL 
AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTIES 


Addresses  and  Writings  of 

PERCY  ANDREAE 


GIFT  OF 

c^y 


PHOTO    BY    MATZENE,    CHICAGO 


/ 


PROHIBITION 
MOVEMENT 

IN  ITS  BROADER  BEARINGS 
UPON  OUR  SOCIAL,  COMMERCIAL 
AND  RELIGIOUS  LIBERTIES 


Addresses  and  Writings  of 

PERCY  ANDREAE 


Published  by 

FELIX  MENDELSOHN 

Peoples  Gas  Building 
Chicago 


Copyrighted  1915 
by  Felix  Mendelsohn 


Printed  by 

THE  COMMONWEALTH  PRESS 
Chicago 


< 


Contents 

Page 

A  Glimpse  Behind  the  Mask  of  Prohibition 9 

The  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.,  and  His 

Divine  Master — A  Contrast 20 

From  The  Crown,  Newark,  N.  J.,  May  1909. 

Some  Reflections  on  the  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohi- 
bition    45 

From  The  Crown,  Newark,  N.  J.,  May  1909. 

The  Brewer  and  the  Retail  Liquor  Traffic 72 

Address  delivered  at  the  convention  of  the  United  States 
Brewers'  Association  in  Atlantic  City,  June,  1909. 

Address  in  Support  of  a  Proposed  Amendment  to 

the  Rose  County  Option  Law/ : 86 

Delivered  in  the  Senate.  Chamber  of  the  Ohio  General  Assem- 
bly, February  22,  1910. 

Truth  from  a  Brewer's  Standpoint 105 

From  Leslie's  Weekly,  June  2,  1910.      ; 

Some  Fallacies  and  a  Moral 128 

Address  delivered  before  the  convention  of  the  National  Whole- 
sale Liquor  Dealers'  Association,  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  May  25, 
1910. 

Address  Before  the  Committee  on  Temperance  of 
the  Ohio  House  of  Representatives  in  Support 
of  the  Dean  Amendment  to  the  Rose  County 
Option  Law , 142 

Delivered  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Representatives,  February  9, 
1911. 

Opening  Address  Delivered  Before  the  Second  In- 
ternational Brewers'  Congress,  Chicago,  Oc- 
tober 18,  1911 162 

Argument  on  Constitutional  License 182 

Made  before  the  Liquor  Traffic  Committee  of  the  Ohio  Consti- 
tutional Convention,  1912. 

Argument  on  Proposed  License  Codes 198 

Before  the  Joint  Committee  of  the  General  Assembly  of 
Ohio,  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  January  20, 
1913. 


312720 


Contents — Continued 


Why  a  Brewer  Is  Proud  of  His  Business 219 

Address  delivered  at  the  farewell  banquet  tendered  to  the 
Hon.  Charles  J.  Vopicka,  minister  plenipotentiary  to  Bulgaria, 
Servia  and  the  Balkan  States,  October  11,  1913. 

Open  Letter  to  Dean  Walter  T.  Sumner 228 

From  the  Chicago  Inter  Ocean,  April  27,  1913. 

Political  and  Personal  Liberty 241 

Address  delivered  at  the  annual  banquet  of  the  American 
Association  of  Foreign  Language  Newspapers,  New  York,  Feb- 
ruary 7,  1914. 

Comments  on  Mr.  Andreae's  Banquet  Address.  .  .   251 

From  the  American  Leader,  June  11,  1914. 

Nation- Wide  Prohibition  and  Its  Effects  Upon 

the  American  Hotels  and  Their  Patrons 263 

Address  delivered  before  the  American  Hotel  Protective  Asso- 
ciation of  the  United  States  and  Canada,  at  the  Waldorf- 
Astoria,  New  York,  on  April  14,  1914. 

Personal  Liberty 280 

The  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day 318 

Address  delivered  at  the  Annual  Outing  of  the  Personal  Liberty 
League  of  Cuyahoga  County,  Cleveland,  Ohio,  July  22,  1914. 

The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition 340 

An  address  delivered  before  a  mass  meeting  of  citizens  at 
Music  Hall,  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  October  30,  1914. 

When  the  Majority  Is  King 356 

From  the  American  Leader,  October  8  and  22,  1914. 

When  a  Minority  Is  the  People 370 

From  the  American  Leader,  November  12  and  28,  1914. 

Some  Reflections  on  the  Relation  Between  Liberty 

and  Law 387 

From  the  American  Leader,  March  25,  1915. 

Liberty,  Race  Culture,  and  Our  Balance  of  Profit 

and  Loss 400 

An  address  delivered  before  the  New  Jersey  State  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  Newark,  N.  J.,  April  13,  1915. 


A  Glimpse  behind  the  Mask 
of   Prohibition 

Somewhere  in  the  Bible  it  is  said:  "If  thy  right 
hand  offend  thee,  cut  it  off."  I  used  to  think  the  rem- 
edy somewhat  radical.  But  to-day,  being  imbued  with 
the  wisdom  of  the  prohibitionist,  I  have  to  acknowledge 
that,  if  the  Bible  in  general,  and  that  passage  in  it  in 
particular,  has  a  fault,  it  lies  in  its  ultra-conservative- 
ness.  What?  Merely  cut  off  my  own  right  hand  if  it 
offend  me?  What  business  have  my  neighbors  to  keep 
their  right  hands  if  I  am  not  able  to  make  mine  behave 
itself?  Off  with  the  lot  of  them!  Let  there  be  no  right 
hands;  then  I  am  certain  that  mine  won't  land  me  in 
trouble. 

I  have  met  many  active  prohibitionists,  both  in 
this  and  in  other  countries,  all  of  them  thoroughly  in 
earnest.  In  some  instances  I  have  found  that  their 
allegiance  to  the  cause  of  prohibition  took  its  origin  in 
the  fact  that  some  near  relative  or  friend  had  suc- 
cumbed to  over-indulgence  in  liquor.  In  one  or  two 
cases  the  man  himself  had  been  a  victim  of  this  weak- 
ness, and  had  come  to  the  conclusion,  firstly,  that  every 
one  else  was  constituted  as  he  was,  and,  therefore,  liable 
to  the  same  danger ;  and  secondly,  that  unless  every  one 


10  The  Mask  of  Prohibition. 

were  prevented  from  drinking,  he  would  not  be  secure 
from  the  temptation  to  do  so  himself. 

This  is  one  class  of  prohibitionists.  The  other,  and 
by  far  the  larger  class,  is  made  up  of  religious  zealots, 
to  whom  prohibition  is  a  word  having  at  bottom  a  far 
wider  application  than  that  which  is  generally  attrib- 
uted to  it.  The  liquor  question,  if  there  really  is  such 
a  question  per  se,  is  merely  put  forth  by  them  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  an  incidental  factor  in  a  fight  which 
has  for  its  object  the  supremacy  of  a  certain  form  of 
religious  faith.  The  belief  of  many  of  these  people  is 
that  the  Creator  frowns  upon  enjoyment  of  any  and 
every  kind,  and  that  he  has  merely  endowed  us  with 
certain  desires  and  capacities  for  pleasure  in  order  to 
give  us  an  opportunity  to  please  Him  by  resisting 
them.  They  are,  of  course,  perfectly  entitled  to  this 
belief,  though  some  of  us  may  consider  it  eccentric  and 
somewhat  in  the  nature  of  a  libel  on  the  Almighty. 
But  are  they  privileged  to  force  that  belief  on  all  their 
fellow  beings?  That,  in  substance,  is  the  question  that 
is  involved  in  the  present-day  prohibition  movement. 

For  it  is  all  nonsense  to  suppose  that  because,  per- 
haps, one  in  a  hundred  or  so  of  human  beings  is  too 
weak  to  resist  the  temptation  of  over-indulging  in 
drink — or  of  over-indulging  in  anything  else,  for  the 
matter  of  that — therefore  all  mankind  is  going  to 
forego  the  right  to  indulge  in  that  enjoyment  in 
moderation.  The  leaders  of  the  so-called  prohibition 


The  Mask  of  Prohibition.  11 

movement  know  as  well  as  you  and  I  do  that  you  can 
no  more  prevent  an  individual  from  taking  a  drink  if 
he  be  so  inclined  than  you  can  prevent  him  from  scratch- 
ing himself  if  he  itches.  They  object  to  the  existence 
of  the  saloon,  not,  bear  in  mind,  to  that  of  the  badly- 
conducted  saloon,  but  to  that  of  the  well-regulated, 
decent  saloon,  and  wherever  they  succeed  in  destroying 
the  latter,  their  object,  which  is  the  manifestation  of 
their  political  power,  is  attained.  That  for  every 
decent,  well-ordered  saloon  they  destroy,  there  springs 
up  a  dive,  or  speak-easy,  or  blind  tiger,  or  whatever 
other  name  it  may  be  known  by,  and  the  dispensing 
of  drink  continues  as  merrily  as  before,  doesn't  disturb 
them  at  all.  They  make  the  sale  of  liquor  a  crime, 
but  steadily  refuse  to  make  its  purchase  and  consump- 
tion an  offense.  Time  and  again  the  industries  affected 
by  this  apparently  senseless  crusade  have  endeavored 
to  have  laws  passed  making  dry  territories  really  dry 
by  providing  for  the  punishment  of  the  man  who  buys 
drink  as  well  as  the  man  who  sells  it.  But  every  such 
attempt  has  been  fiercely  opposed  by  the  prohibition 
leaders.  And  why?  Because  they  know  only  too  well 
that  the  first  attempt  to  really  prohibit  drinking  would 
put  an  end  to  their  power  forever.  They  know  that  80 
per  cent  of  those  who,  partly  by  coercion,  partly  from 
sentiment,  vote  dry,  are  perfectly  willing  to  restrict 
the  right  of  the  remaining  20  per  cent  to  obtain  drink, 
but  that  they  are  not  willing  to  sacrifice  that  right  for 
themselves. 


12  The  Mask  of  Prohibition. 

And  so  the  farce  called  prohibition  goes  on,  and  will 
continue  to  go  on  as  long  as  it  brings  grist  to  the  mill 
of  the  managers  who  are  producing  it.  But  the  farce 
conceals  something  far  more  serious  than  that  which 
is  apparent  to  the  public  on  the  face  of  it.  Prohibition 
is  merely  the  title  of  the  movement.  Its  real  purpose 
is  of  a  religious,  sectarian  character,  and  this  applies 
not  only  to  the  movement  in  America,  but  to  the  same 
movement  in  England,  a  fact  which,  strangely  enough, 
has  rarely,  if  at  all,  been  recognized  by  those  who  have 
dealt  with  the  question  in  the  public  press. 

If  there  is  any  one  who  doubts  the  truth  of  this 
statement,  let  me  put  this  to  him:  How  many  Roman 
Catholics  are  prohibitionists?  How  many  Jews,  the 
most  temperate  race  on  earth,  are  to  be  found  in  the 
ranks  of  prohibition?  Or  Lutherans?  Or  German 
Protestants  generally?  What  is  the  proportion  of 
Episcopalians  to  that  of  Methodists,  Baptists  and 
Presbyterians,  and  the  like,  in  the  active  prohibition 
army?  The  answer  to  these  questions  will,  I  venture 
to  say,  prove  conclusively  the  assertion  that  the  fight 
for  prohibition  is  synonymous  with  the  fight  of  a  cer- 
tain religious  sect,  or  group  of  religious  sects,  for  the 
supremacy  of  its  ideas.  In  England  it  is  the  Non- 
conformists, which  is  in  that  country  the  generic  name 
for  the  same  sects,  who  are  fighting  the  fight,  and  the 
suppression  of  liquor  there  is  no  more  the  ultimate 
end  they  have  in  view  than  it  is  here  in  America.  It  is 


The  Mask  of  Prohibition.  13 

the  fads  and  restrictions  that  are  part  and  parcel  of 
their  lugubrious  notion  of  Godworship  which  they 
eventually  hope  to  impose  upon  the  rest  of  humanity; 
a  Sunday  without  a  smile,  no  games,  no  recreation,  no 
pleasures,  no  music,  card-playing  tabooed,  dancing 
anathematized,  the  beauties  of  art  decried  as  impure— 
in  short,  this  world  reduced  to  a  barren,  forbidding 
wilderness  in  which  we,  its  inhabitants,  are  to  pass  our 
time  contemplating  the  joys  of  the  next.  Rather 
problematical  joys,  by  the  way,  if  we  are  to  suppose 
we  shall  worship  God  in  the  next  world  in  the  same 
somber  way  as  we  are  called  upon  by  these  worthies 
to  do  in  this. 

To  my  mind,  and  that  of  many  others,  the  hearty, 
happy  laugh  of  a  human  being  on  a  sunny  Sunday  is 
music  sweeter  to  the  ears  of  that  being's  Creator  than 
all  the  groanings,  and  meanings,  and  misericordias  that 
rise  to  heaven  from  the  lips  of  those  who  would  deprive 
us  altogether  of  the  faculty  and  the  privilege  of  mirth. 
That  some  overdo  hilarity  and  become  coarse  and 
offensive,  goes  without  saying.  There  are  people  with- 
out the  sense  of  proportion  or  propriety  in  all  matters. 
Yet  none  of  us  think  of  abolishing  pleasures  because 
a  few  do  not  know  how  to  enjoy  them  in  moderation 
and  with  decency,  and  become  an  offense  to  their 
neighbors. 

The  drink  evil  has  existed  from  time  immemorial, 
just  as  sexual  excess  has,  and  all  other  vices  to  which 


14  The  Mask  of  Prohibition. 

mankind  is  and  always  will  be  more  or  less  prone, 
though  less  in  proportion  as  education  progresses  and 
the  benefits  of  civilization  increase.  Sexual  excess, 
curiously  enough,  has  never  interested  our  hyper- 
religious  friends,  the  prohibitionists,  in  anything  like 
the  degree  that  the  vice  of  excessive  drinking  does. 
Perhaps  this  is  because  the  best  of  us  have  our  pet 
aversions  and  our  pet  weaknesses.  Yet  this  particular 
vice  has  produced  more  evil  results  to  the  human  race 
than  all  other  vices  combined,  and,  in  spite  of  it,  man- 
kind, thanks  not  to  prohibitive  laws  and  restrictive 
legislation,  but  to  the  forward  strides  of  knowledge 
and  to  patient  and  intelligent  education,  is  to-day  ten 
times  sounder  in  body  and  healthier  in  mind  than  it 
ever  was  in  the  world's  history. 

Now,  if  the  habit  of  drinking  to  excess  were  a  grow- 
ing one,  as  our  prohibitionist  friends  claim  that  it  is, 
we  should  to-day,  instead  of  discussing  this  question 
with  more  or  less  intelligence,  not  be  here  at  all  to 
argue  it;  for  the  evil,  such  as  it  is,  has  existed  for  so 
many  ages  that,  if  it  were  as  general  and  as  contagious 
as  is  claimed,  and  its  results  as  far-reaching  as  they 
are  painted,  the  human  race  would  have  been  destroyed 
by  it  long  ago.  Of  course,  the  contrary  is  the  case. 
The  world  has  progressed  in  this  as  in  all  other  respects. 
Compare,  for  instance,  the  drinking  to-day  with  the 
drinking  of  a  thousand  years  ago,  nay,  of  only  a  hun- 
dred odd  years  ago,  when  a  man,  if  he  wanted  to  ape 


The  Mask  of  Prohibition.  15 

his  so-called  betters,  did  so  by  contriving  to  be  carried 
to  bed  every  night  "drunk  as  a  lord."  Has  that  con- 
dition of  affairs  been  altered  by  legislative  measures 
restricting  the  right  of  the  individual  to  control  him- 
self? No.  It  has  been  altered  by  that  far  greater 
power,  the  moral  force  of  education  and  the  good 
example  which  teaches  mankind  the  very  thing  that 
prohibition  would  take  from  it:  the  virtue  of  self- 
control  and  moderation  in  all  things. 

And  here  we  come  to  the  vital  distinction  between 
the  advocacy  of  temperance  and  the  advocacy  of  pro- 
hibition. Temperance  and  self-control  are  convertible 
terms.  Prohibition,  or  that  which  it  implies,  is  the 
direct  negation  of  the  term  self-control.  In  order  to 
save  the  small  percentage  of  men  who  are  too  weak 
to  resist  their  animal  desires,  it  aims  to  put  chains 
on  every  man,  the  weak  and  the  strong  alike.  And  if 
this  is  proper  in  one  respect,  why  not  in  all  respects? 
Yet,  what  would  one  think  of  a  proposition  to  keep  all 
men  locked  up  because  a  certain  number  have  a  pro- 
pensity to  steal?  Theoretically,  perhaps,  all  crime  or 
vice  could  be  stopped  by  chaining  us  all  up  as  we 
chain  up  a  wild  animal,  and  only  allowing  us  to  take 
exercise  under  proper  supervision  and  control.  But 
while  such  a  measure  would  check  crime,  it  would  not 
eliminate  the  criminal.  It  is  true,  some  people  are 
only  kept  from  vice  and  crime  by  the  fear  of  punish- 
ment. Is  not,  indeed,  the  basis  of  some  men's  religious- 


16  The  Mask  of  Prohibition. 

ness  nothing  else  but  the  fear  of  Divine  punishment? 
The  doctrines  of  certain  religious  denominations  not 
entirely  unknown  in  the  prohibition  camp  make  self- 
respeet,  which  is  the  foundation  of  self-control  and  of 
all  morality,  a  sin.  They  decry  rather  than  advocate 
it.  They  love  to  call  themselves  miserable,  helpless 
sinners,  cringing  before  the  flaming  sword,  and  it  is 
the  flaming  sword,  not  the  exercise  of  their  own  enlight- 
ened will,  that  keeps  them  within  decent  bounds.  Yet 
has  this  fear  of  eternal  punishment  contributed  one 
iota  toward  the  intrinsic  betterment  of  the  human 
being?  If  it  had,  would  so  many  of  our  Christian 
creeds  have  discarded  it,  admitting  that  it  is  the  pre- 
cepts of  religion,  not  its  dark  and  dire  threats,  that 
make  men  truly  better  and  stronger  within  themselves 
to  resist  that  which  our  self-respect  teaches  us  is  bad 
and  harmful?  The  growth  of  self-respect  in  man,  with 
its  outward  manifestation,  self-control,  is  the  growth 
of  civilization.  If  we  are  to  be  allowed  to  exercise 
it  no  longer,  it  must  die  in  us  from  want  of  nutrition, 
and  men  must  become  savages  once  more,  fretting 
now  at  their  chains,  which  they  will  break  as  inevitably 
as  the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow  and  herald  a  new  day. 

I  consider  the  danger  which  threatens  civilized  society 
from  the  growing  power  of  a  sect  whose  views  on 
prohibition  are  merely  an  exemplification  of  their  gen- 
eral low  estimate  of  man's  ability  to  rise  to  higher 
things  by  his  own  volition  to  be  of  infinitely  greater 


The  Mask  of  Prohibition.  17 

consequence  than  the  danger  that,  in  putting  their 
narrow  theories  to  the  test,  a  few  billions  of  invested 
property  will  be  destroyed,  a  number  of  great  wealth- 
producing  industries  wiped  out,  the  rate  of  individual 
taxation  largely  increased,  and  a  million  or  so  of  strug- 
gling wage  earners  doomed  to  face  starvation.  These 
latter  considerations,  of  course,  must  appeal  to  every 
thinking  man,  but  what  are  they  compared  with  the 
greater  questions  involved?  Already  the  government 
of  our  State,  and  indeed  of  a  good  many  other  States, 
has  passed  practically  into  the  hands  of  a  few  preacher- 
politicians  of  a  certain  creed.  With  the  machine  they 
have  built  up,  by  appealing  to  the  emotional  weaknesses 
of  the  more  or  less  unintelligent  masses,  they  have 
lifted  themselves  on  to  a  pedestal  of  power  that  has 
enabled  them  to  dictate  legislation  or  defeat  it  at 
their  will,  to  usurp  the  functions  of  the  governing 
head  of  the  State  and  actually  induce  him  to  delegate 
to  them  the  appointive  powers  vested  in  him  by  the 
Constitution.  When  a  Governor  elected  by  the  popular 
vote  admits,  as  was  recently  the  case,  that  he  can  not 
appoint  a  man  to  one  of  the  most  important  offices  of 
the  State  without  the  indorsement  of  the  irresponsible 
leader  of  a  certain  semi-religious  movement,  and  when 
he  submits  to  this  same  personage  for  correction  and 
amendment  his  recommendation  to  the  legislative  body, 
there  can  scarcely  be  any  doubt  left  in  any  reasonable 
mind  as  to  the  extent  of  the  power  wielded  by  this 


18  The  Mask  of  Prohibition. 

leader,  or  as  to  the  uses  he  and  those  behind  him  intend 
putting  it  to. 

And  what  does  it  all  mean?  It  means  that  govern- 
ment by  emotion  is  to  be  substituted  for  government 
by  reason,  and  government  by  emotion,  of  which  history 
affords  many  examples,  is,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  all  ages,  the  most  dangerous  and  pernicious  of  all 
forms  of  government.  It  has  already  crept  into  the 
legislative  assemblies  of  most  of  the  States  of  the 
Union,  and  is  being  craftily  fostered  by  those  who 
know  how  easily  it  can  be  made  available  for  their 
purposes — purposes  to  the  furtherance  of  which  cool 
reason  would  never  lend  itself.  Prohibition  is  but  one 
of  its  fruits,  and  the  hand  that  is  plucking  this  fruit 
is  the  same  hand  of  intolerance  that  drove  forth  cer- 
tain of  our  forefathers  from  the  land  of  their  birth  to 
seek  the  sheltering  freedom  of  these  shores. 

What  a  strange  reversal  of  conditions!  The  intol- 
erants  of  a  few  hundred  years  ago  are  the  upholders 
of  liberty  to-day,  while  those  they  once  persecuted, 
having  multiplied  by  grace  of  the  very  liberty  that 
has  so  long  sheltered  them  here,  are  now  planning  to 
impose  the  tyranny  of  their  narrow  creed  upon  the 
descendants  of  their  persecutors  of  yore. 

Let  the  greater  public,  which  is,  after  all,  the  arbiter 
of  the  country's  destinies,  pause  and  ponder  these 
things  before  they  are  allowed  to  progress  too  far. 
Prohibition,  though  it  must  cause,  and  is  already  caus- 


The  Mask  of  Prohibition.  19 

ing,  incalculable  damage,  may  never  succeed  in  this 
country;  but  that  which  is  behind  it,  as  the  catapults 
and  the  cannon  were  behind  the  battering  rams  in  the 
battles  of  olden  days,  is  certain  to  succeed  unless 
timely  measures  of  prevention  are  resorted  to;  and  if 
it  does  succeed,  we  shall  witness  the  enthronement  of  a 
monarch  in  this  land  of  liberty  compared  with  whose 
autocracy  the  autocracy  of  the  Russian  Czar  is  a  mere 
trifle. 

The  name  of  this  monarch  is  Religious  Intolerance. 


The  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D., 

and  His  Divine  Master- 

A  Contrast 

From  The  Crown,  Newark,  N.  J.,  May,  1909 

In  the  month  of  March  there  appeared  in  Appleton's 
Magazine  an  article  by  the  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked, 
D.  D.,  entitled  "Christianity  and  Temperance."  In  the 
ordinary  course  of  things  it  would  not  be  expected  that 
such  a  subject,  especially  when  treated  by  a  minister 
of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  could  lend  itself  to  any  dis- 
cussion of  a  controversial  nature.  In  the  article  in 
question,  however,  there  are  utterances  of  so  extra- 
ordinary a  character,  not  only  impugning  the  honesty 
and  manhood  of  thousands  of  men  who  for  years  have 
been  obliged  to  submit  more  or  less  in  silence  to  similar 
attacks,  from  similar  quarters,  but  actually  exhorting 
the  church  of  Christ  to  deny  them  the  spiritual  priv- 
ileges which  Almighty  God  has  vouchsafed  to  the 
humblest  and  lowest  of  those  whom  He  created  in  His 
image,  that  I  have  felt  constrained,  as  one  of  the  men 
thus  publicly  assailed  and  threatened,  to  request  per- 
mission to  reply  to  the  reverend  author. 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  21 

I  might  fitly  disregard  the  question  upon  which  all 
Mr.  Aked's  arguments  hinge,  whether  the  use  of  stimu- 
lants in  moderate  quantities  is  harmful  in  the  broader 
sense  or  not,  as  being  neither  in  my  province  nor  that 
of  a  theologian  to  determine.  But  since  Mr.  Aked's 
entire  article  is  based  upon  a  settlement  of  this  very 
question  in  his  own  very  pragmatical  way,  it  is  only 
right  and  just  for  me  to  state,  by  way  of  preface  to 
my  reply,  that,  audacious  as  it  may  seem,  I  disagree 
with  the  reverend  gentleman's  conclusions  in  this  all- 
important  regard. 

Of  course,  I  am  neither  a  minister  nor  an  expert 
physician.  But  I  belong  to  a  family  whose  members 
for  many  generations  have  indulged  in  stimulants, 
and  I  do  so  myself  for  diverse  reasons.  Firstly,  because 
I  have  always  been  accustomed  to  them;  secondly, 
because  I  like  them,  and  because  they  have  wrought  me 
no  harm;  and  lastly,  because  I  was  taught  by  a  Chris- 
tian sect,  whose  standing  among  religious  denomina- 
tions is  not  inferior  to  that  of  the  church  to  which  the 
reverend  gentleman  himself  belongs,  that  the  moderate 
use  of  stimulants  is  sanctioned  by  the  revealed  scrip- 
tures, and  can  injure  no  normally  healthy  being. 

I  am  aware  that  all  this  will  not  affect  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Aked's  uncompromising  attitude.  He  is  of  a  dif- 
ferent opinion,  and  he  has  given  due  notice  to  all  men 
that  whosoever  disagrees  with  him  and  the  particular 
coterie  of  experts  whose  dicta  he  approves  is,  ipso  facto, 


22  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

ruled  out  of  court,  and  unworthy  of  further  considera- 
tion. So  that  precludes  the  possibility  of  any  further 
argument  with  the  reverend  gentleman  on  that  score. 

Still,  since  the  burden  of  Mr.  Aked's  article,  which 
will  undoubtedly  have  been  read  by  many  thousands, 
is  the  intentional  iniquity  of  the  brewer,  as  evidenced 
by  the  mere  fact  that  he  brews  and  sells  beer,  and  the 
consequent  duty  of  the  church  to  anathematize  and 
excommunicate  him,  without  further  trial  or  hearing, 
I  may  be  permitted  to  plead  before  the  greater  tribunal 
of  the  public  the  following  circumstance  in  extenuation 
of  my  offense  in  belonging  to  the  fraternity  which  Mr. 
Aked  so  deeply  abhors. 

As  it  happens,  I  received  my  chief  religious  instruc- 
tion from  the  Moravian  Brethren.  It  is  perhaps  not 
generally  known  that  John  Wesley,  the  founder  of 
the  Methodist  Church,  was  converted  by  one  of  these 
Brethren,  and  established,  under  the  influence  of  the 
Moravian  teachings,  what  is  known  to-day  as  the 
Methodist  faith.  The  connection  is,  therefore,  from 
some  points  of  view,  quite  a  respectable  one.  The 
Moravian  creed  may  be  summarized  in  the  simple  doc- 
trine that  the  Scripture  is  the  only  rule  of  faith  and 
practice.  Under  that  doctrine,  though  they  do  not 
mingle  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  Moravian  Breth- 
ren engage  in  many  industries,  among  which — horribile 
dictu — is  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  beer.  While  at 
school  and  under  the  tuition  of  these  excellent  men, 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  23 

whose  religious  earnestness  and  whose  Christian  works 
no  man,  not  excepting  even,  I  fancy,  Mr.  Aked  him- 
self, will  question,  I  often  visited  their  chief  brewery, 
drank  beer  in  its  cellars,  and  learned  from  them  by 
precept  and  example  that  God  had  caused  the  grape  to 
grow  in  order  that  man  might  produce  from  it  the 
wine  that  "gladdeneth  the  heart." 

So  much,  then,  for  myself,  and  for  the  Moravian, 
Brethren,  to  whose  instruction  I  owe  such  little  good 
as  is  in  me,  just  as  John  Wesley,  the  founder  of  the 
Methodist  Church,  owed  them,  nearly  two  hundred 
years. ago,  that  which  made  him  the  man  he  afterwards 
became. 

Now  comes  the  Reverend  Mr.  Aked  at  the  com- 
mencement of  this  twentieth  century  and  says:  "And 
clearly,  therefore,  the  Church  must  refuse  to  hold  com- 
munion with  any  man  or  woman  who  manufactures  or 
sells  intoxicating  liquor.  No  man  making  his  money 
by  the  liquor  traffic  must  be  admitted  to  Church  mem- 
bership. The  money  made  in  the  trade  must  not  be 
accepted,  knowingly,  by  any  Christian  community." 

I  pass  over  the  fact  that  this  sentence  of  excommuni- 
cation includes  an  entire  Christian  Church,  and  prob- 
ably the  most  intensely  religious  body  of  men  living 
to-day.  Inasmuch  as  they  have  the  misfortune  (or  is 
it  the  wilful  wickedness?)  to  differ  from  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Aked,  they  presumably  deserve  in  his  eyes  no 
better  fate.  But  passing  from  the  particular  to  the 


24  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

general  question,  is  it  not  fair  to  ask  upon  what  author- 
ity, biblical  or  otherwise,  the  Reverend  Mr.  Aked  takes 
the  ground  he  does?  The  Scripture  is  open  to  the 
layman  as  well  as  to  the  preacher,  and  unless  great 
changes  have  taken  place  since  I  was  instructed  in  the 
meaning  of  the  revealed  word,  the  teachings  of  Christ 
are  still  the  foundation  upon  which  the  fabric  of  the 
jnodern  Christian  Church  is  reared.  If  this  is  really 
so,  and  if  a  new  messiah  has  not  arisen  in  this  twentieth 
century  to  put  to  shame  and  confound  the  hitherto 
recognized  one  and  only  Messiah,  whom  we  all  wor- 
ship, let  me  tell  the  Reverend  Mr.  Aked,  and  I  say 
it  in  all  solemnity,  as  one  endowed  as  he  is  with  an 
immortal  soul,  as  one  who,  before  God,  is  an  equal 
participator  with  him  in  the  divine  love  which  cleanses 
from  all  sin,  that  a  church  which  would  adopt  the  stand 
he  advocates  would  no  longer  be  a  House  of  God,  but  a 
House  of  the  Evil  One,  in  which  the  name  of  Christ 
is  taken  in  vain  and  His  divine  message  of  peace  and 
good-will  to  all  men  made  a  hideous  mockery. 

Contrast  with  this  shocking  utterance  of  a  minister 
of  Christ  the  words  of  Christ  Himself,  addressed  (sig- 
nificantly enough)  to  the  Chief  Priests  and  Elders  of 
the  people  of  Israel  in  connection  with  the  parable  of 
the  two  sons  who  were  ordered  by  their  father  to  go  and 
work  in  his  vineyard.  The  gospel  of  Matthew  quotes 
them  as  follows:  Chapter  21,  Verses  31  and  32:— 
"Jesus  saith  unto  them:  Verily  I  say  unto  you  that 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  25 

the  publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into  the  Kingdom  of 
God  before  you,  for  John  came  unto  you  in  the  way 
of  righteousness,  and  ye  believed  him  not,  but  the 
publicans  and  the  harlots  believed  him!  And  ye,  when 
ye  had  seen  it,  repented  not  afterward,  that  ye  might 
believe  him." 

Contrast  furthermore  with  the  Reverend  Mr.  Aked's 
exhortation  to  the  ministry  at  large  to  deny  manufac- 
turers of  liquor  the  benefits  of  the  Church  which  his 
Master  founded,  the  action  of  that.  Master  Himself, 
as  recorded  in  the  gospel  of  Matthew,  Chapter  9, 
Verses  10  to  13:  "And  it  came  to  pass,  as  Jesus  sat 
at  meat  in  the  house,  behold  many  publicans  and  sinners 
came  and  sat  down  with  Him  and  His  disciples;  and 
when  the  Pharisees  saw  it,  they  said  unto  His  disciples, 
Why  eateth  your  Master  with  publicans  and  sinners  ? 
But  when  Jesus  heard  that,  He  said  unto  them,  They 
that  be  whole  need  not  a  physician,  but  they  that  are 
sick.  But  go  ye  and  learn  what  that  meaneth,  I  will 
have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice;  for  I  am  not  come  to  call 
the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  repentance." 

"I  will  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice."  How  will  Mr. 
Aked  account  to  his  Master  Christ  for  refusing  to  any 
mortal  being  the  comforts  of  the  Church,  in  which  His 
word,  as  handed  down  to  us  by  His  apostles,  and  not 
Mr.  Aked's  word,  is  law? 

Does  it  never  occur  to  those  who  preach  the  gospel 
of  temperance  that  there  is  an  intemperance  of  the 


26  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

mind  which  is  far  more  shocking,  far  more  disgraceful, 
and  far  more  disastrous  in  its  effects  than  the  intemper- 
ance of  the  body?  The  drunkard  is  dangerous  because 
he  has  temporarily  lost  all  cognizance  of  law,  of  duty, 
of  decency,  and  of  regard  for  his  fellow-men.  Opposi- 
tion inflames  his  anger,  and  he  is  liable  to  murder  any 
one  who  contradicts  him.  Yet  what  is  he  but  a  spiritual 
drunkard  who,  because  he  differs,  however  honestly, 
from  thousands  and  thousands  of  his  fellow-men,  pro- 
ceeds in  cold  blood  to  murder  their  souls,  instead  of 
ministering  to  them,  as  the  physician  ministers  to  those 
whom  he  believes  to  be  sick? 

Christ  was  pre-eminently  the  Messenger  of  Charity. 
Is  there  one  word  of  true  Christian  charity  to  be  found 
in  all  the  utterances  of  His  servant,  the  Reverend  C.  F. 
Aked,  D.  D.,  on  the  subject  of  temperance?  He  poses 
as  the  new  savior  of  mankind.  But  what  a  difference 
between  this  latter-day  savior  and  the  divine  Messiah 
Whom  he  would  supersede,  and  Whose  teachings  he 
arrogantly  sets  at  naught!  He  says  that  "the  use  of 
intoxicatiing  wine  at  the  Lord's  Table  is  entirely  with- 
out defense";  and  no  doubt  he  is  entitled  to  his  opinion. 
Yet  the  majority  of  Christian  Churches  believe  that  the 
use  of  such  wine  is  an  essential  part  of  the  awful  cele- 
bration of  the  Savior's  sacrifice.  And  what  is  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Aked's  attitude  towards  these  Christian 
churches  that  differ  from  him? 

"Their  determination,"  he  says,  "to  persevere  in  the 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  27 

practice  of  providing  intoxicating  wine  for  sacramental 
purposes  grows  out  of  one  of  two  things.  It  grows 
out  of  a  love  of  the  liquor — which  is  dangerous;  or  it 
grows  out  of  hate  of  the  Temperance  sentiment — which 
is  detestable.  Conscience  is  concerned  with  the  protest 
against  it.  Conscience  cannot  be  concerned  with  the 
demand  for  it."  Any  argument  to  the  contrary,  the 
reverend  gentleman  declares  further  on,  can  only  be 
"one  of  wicked  selfishness  or  of  more  wicked  spite- 
fulness." 

Did  ever  a  more  uncharitable,  ever  a  more  flagrantly 
intemperate  utterance  issue  from  the  mouth  of  one  who 
professes  to  be  a  servant  of  Christ  Jesus?  Would  it  be 
entirely  unjustifiable  to  say  that  such  an  utterance  as 
this,  in  face  of  the  undoubted  fact  that  millions  of  true 
Christians  honestly  adhere  to  the  belief  which  is  here 
so  shamefully  stigmatized,  is  conclusive  proof  of  the 
mental  inebriety  of  the  person  that  makes  it?  If  we 
glance  at  the  records  of  history,  we  shall  find  that  it 
is  from  men  who  assumed  the  same  uncompromising 
attitude  towards  those  that  differed  from  them  on 
matters  of  religious  detail  that  mankind  has  suffered 
ravages  worse  than  any  that  can  be  attributed  to  the 
effects  of  alcohol. 

Of  course,  no  man  with  eyes  to  see  and  ears  to 
hear  can  be  ignorant  of  the  evils  consequent  upon  the 
excessive  indulgence  in  drink.  Even  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Aked  admits  that  nobody  on  the  face  of  the 


28  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

earth  (and  presumably  he  includes  in  the  category  the 
wicked  manufacturer  of  stimulants  himself)  defends 
drunkenness.  But  is  it  not  strange  that  the  intemper- 
ance among  men  who  drink  is  infinitesimal  as  compared 
with  the  intemperance  exhibited  by  those  who  preach 
the  doctrine  of  temperance  from  the  pulpits  and  the 
platforms  of  the  country?  In  Mr.  Aked's  opinion 
everyone  who  drinks  is  practically  a  drunkard,  just  as 
everybody  who  disagrees  with  him  is  a  wilful  wrong- 
doer. In  following  up  this  particular  line  of  argument, 
the  reverend  gentleman  allows  his  zeal  to  outrun  his 
discretion;  only  momentarily,  however.  For,  in  the 
course  of  his  reasoning,  he  has  arrived  at  the  inevitable 
and  logical  conclusion  that  the  sin  of  drinking  (even  in 
moderation)  is  no  less  heinous  than  the  sin  of  manu- 
facturing drink.  A  perfectly  intelligent  conclusion,  of 
course,  but  a  dangerous  one  to  the  cause  championed 
by  Mr.  Aked,  as  the  writer  presently  realizes.  For  he 
promptly  pulls  himself  up,  and  goes  on:  "Well,  per- 
haps so.  But  a  plea  may  be  submitted  (in  this  case) 
for  suspense  of  judgment."  And  why?  "Because," 
says  Mr.  Aked,  "some  of  the  best  men  and  women  the 
Church  has  ever  known  have  been  non-abstainers;  and 
a  movement  intended  to  un- Church  the  Church  member 
who  has  not  properly  grasped  God's  purpose  for  this 
generation  would  justly  be  regarded  as  intolerable." 
Truly,  intolerable!  Just  as  intolerable  as  the  un- 
Churching  of  those  who  manufacture  and  supply  the 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  29 

drink  which  some  of  the  best  men  and  women  the 
Church  has  ever  known  indulge  in.  Only,  in  case  the 
latter  were  un- Churched,  the  congregations  of  the 
churches  might  become  uncomfortably  thinned,  and 
so — acting  under  Mr.  Aked's  advice — the  churches 
are  to  agree  to  wink  their  eye  at  the  iniquity  and  call 
things  square  for  the  moment. 

Was  ever  sophistry  more  gross  ?  Again,  what  a  con- 
trast with  his  divine  Master.  Where  Christ  found  sin, 
He  not  only  denounced  it,  but  He  scourged  the  sinner, 
regardless  of  consequences.  But  when  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Aked  in  his  indiscriminate  ire  finds  himself  en- 
trained, not  beyond  what  he  considers  true  facts  and 
strict  logic,  but  beyond  what  he  deems  prudent  policy, 
he  promptly  compromises  with  his  conscience,  makes  a 
temporary  compact  with  the  Evil  One,  and  agrees  to 
condone  the  religious  felony  he  has  been  fulminating 
against — pending  the  advent  of  a  more  opportune 
time  to  punish  it. 

The  Church,  even  as  conceived  by  Mr.  Aked,  should 
surely  be  consistent.  If  the  man  or  woman  who  manu- 
factures stimulants  is  to  be  excommunicated  because,  in 
addition  to  the  millions  of  good  people  who  drink  those 
stimulants  in  moderation,  there  are  some  who  indulge  in 
them  to  excess  and  are  driven  in  consequence  to  poverty 
and  crime,  why  not  hold,  for  instance,  the  manufacturer 
of  gunpowder  similarly  responsible  for  the  wholesale 
slaughter  of  human  beings  which  the  use  of  gunpowder 


30  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

involves?  Or  the  manufacturer  of  playing  cards  an- 
swerable for  the  distressful  effects  of  the  gambling 
spirit  prevalent  among  men?  And  so  forth.  Indeed, 
there  would  be  more  reason  to  condemn  the  gunpowder- 
maker  than  the  maker  of  stimulants,  for  the  former 
manufactures  no  small  part  of  his  product  with  the 
full  knowledge  and  intention  that  it  is  to  be  used  for 
murderous  purposes  (in  war,  for  instance),  whereas 
the  latter's  product  is  certainly  not  manufactured  with 
the  specific  intention  that  it  shall  be  indulged  in  to 
excess  and  thus  cause  misery  and  crime.  It  is  its  mis- 
use, not  its  use,  in  spite  of  all  that  Mr.  Aked  says  to 
the  contrary,  that  brings  about  this  result,  and  for  the 
misuse  of  stimulants  the  manufacturer  of  them  can  no 
more  be  held  responsible  than  the  manufacturer  of  gun- 
powder can  be  held  responsible  for  the  deaths  of  those 
who  fall  in  war,  or  who  use  the  gunpowder  in  order 
to  take  their  own  or  their  neighbors'  lives.  War  and 
the  manufacture  of  gunpowder,  of  course,  are  sanc- 
tioned by  the  governments  of  the  world.  But  so  is 
the  practice  of  manufacturing  and  drinking  stimulants. 
Does  Mr.  Aked,  as  a  Christian  minister,  approve  the 
former  any  more  than  he  does  the  latter?  The  Church, 
he  implies,  is  to  defy  Caesar  in  the  one  case,  and 
excommunicate  those  whom  Ceasar  protects.  Then 
why  not  act  likewise  in  the  other  case?  Is  there  the 
same  astute  reason  for  a  suspense  of  judgment  in  this 
latter  case  as  was  advanced  for  not  excommunicating 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  31 

the  best  men  and  women  of  the  Church  who  are  non- 
abstainers  ? 

We  are  told  that  we  live  to-day  in  the  age  of  reform. 
I  believe  we  do.  But  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  reform  that 
it  is  liable  itself  to  become  the  subject  of  reform  in  a 
later  age.  Have  we  not,  as  just  exemplified,  the 
spectacle  of  Mr.  Aked  reforming  the  doctrines  of  Him 
who  may,  to  say  the  least,  be  called  the  greatest  re- 
former this  world  has  ever  seen?  If  posterity  ever 
christens  our  age,  I  fancy  it  will  call  it  the  age  of 
reckless  conclusions.  Our  worship  of  reason  has 
reached  the  point  of  idolatry,  and  the  true  human 
god,  Common  Sense,  has  been  relegated  to  the  cellar. 
For  this,  I  veritably  believe,  the  professional  experts 
and  statisticians  are  indirectly  responsible.  They  are 
par  excellence  the  public  nuisances  of  our  day.  To 
them  is  largely  due  the  mass  of  reckless  legislation 
which  issues  annually  from  the  mills  of  our  State  parlia- 
ments, only  to  add  to  the  multitude  of  freak  laws  which 
already  disgrace  our  statute  books.  The  problems 
which  our  forefathers  tackled  with  cautious  and  diffi- 
dent minds,  we,  in  the  plenitude  of  our  latter-day 
wisdom,  hack  at  frantically  with  knives  and  hatchets. 
We  storm  them  with  expert  evidence  and  statistics. 
We  know  the  cause  of  everything,  and  are  ready  to 
apply  the  sure  remedy  for  evils  which  have  existed, 
and  defied  all  the  reason  and  the  remedies  of  our 
ignorant  ancestors,  for  thousands  and  thousands  of 


32  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

years.  It  is  no  longer  an  age  of  progress  that  we  live 
in,  but  an  age  of  final  arrival.  If  the  cart  does  not 
go  fast  enough  at  this  last  stage,  with  the  horse  har- 
nessed in  front  of  it,  presto !  the  conditions  are  reversed, 
and  the  cart  is  placed  before  the  horse,  with  the  full 
assurance  that  we  shall  reach  our  journey's  end  in  a 
twinkling. 

The  drink  evil,  with  its  so-called  concomitant  evils, 
is  one  of  the  problems  at  issue.  Mr.  Aked  has  the  true 
solution  of  it  at  his  command,  as  thousands  of  others 
have,  and  he  flourishes  in  his  hand  the  usual  magic 
wand  that  enables  him  to  produce  the  miracle,  viz: 
statistics.  Statistics,  among  others,  touching  the  rela- 
tion of  crime  and  poverty  to  drink. 

That  drink  is  the  primary  cause  of  crime  and  pov- 
erty, and  that  without  it  90  per  cent  of  the  crimes  we 
now  deplore  would  not  be  committed,  has  so  long  been 
the  slogan  of  our  would-be  reformers  that  it  has 
become,  like  the  axiom  of  mathematics,  a  tacitly  ac- 
cepted fact,  which  to  deny  would  be  as  serious  as  to 
deny  that  the  earth  revolves  around  the  sun.  The 
reason,  in  view  of  the  trend  of  the  age,  is  apparent. 
Statistics  show  that  50  per  cent  of  our  prison  inmates 
have  indulged  in  drink  to  excess.  Ergo:  Drink  caused 
their  downfall  and  their  lapse  into  crime.  The  fact 
never  seems  to  occur  to  anyone  that  it  might  be  just 
as  logical  to  say  that  these  unfortunates  drank  to 
excess  because  they  were  constitutionally  criminal,  as 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

it  is  to  say  that  they  became  criminals  because  they 
yielded  to  a  constitutional  craving  for  drink. 

I  anticipate  the  reply  that  these  men  succumbed  to 
drink  before  they  became  criminals  and,  inasmuch 
as  the  cause  always  precedes  the  effect,  the  logical 
conclusion  is  that  drinking  led  to  crime,  and  not  vice 
versa. 

But  does  this  answer  really  meet  the  point?  Two 
facts  may  be  concomitant,  and  yet  have  no  relation 
to  each  other,  or  they  may  follow  one  another,  and  yet 
not  necessarily  bear  to  each  other  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect.  And  at  the  same  time  these  same  two  facts 
may  be  traceable  to  one  common  basic  origin  or  cause. 
That  criminals  should  be  addicted  to  excessive  indul- 
gence in  drink  seems  to  me  to  be  anything  but  sur- 
prising. No  more  surprising  is  the  fact,  which  is 
undoubted,  that  a  person  given  to  excessive  drinking 
is  frequently  found  to  be  a  criminal.  But  to  my  mind, 
these  two  facts,  broadly  speaking,  prove  neither  that 
drink  and  crime  bear  a  relation  to  one  another,  nor 
that  the  one  is  the  cause  or  the  effect  of  the  other. 
They  prove,  if  they  prove  anything,  that  the  tendency 
to  crime  and  the  tendency  to  drink  have  one  common 
origin  in  the  human  being,  viz:  An  inherent  moral 
weakness,  which  incapacitates  him  from  controlling  his 
appetites  and  passions  and  resisting  temptation.  To 
say  that,  if  the  temptation  to  drink  had  been  removed 
from  him,  he  would  never  have  become  a  criminal,  is 


34  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

to  say  that  which  no  one  can  prove  to  be  true.  If  it 
were  true,  we  should  expect  to  find  a  minimum  of 
criminals  among  those  nations  in  which  the  drinking 
habit  does  not  prevail  at  all,  such  as  among  Mahometan 
peoples.  Yet,  is  crime  less  prevalent  among  the  Turks, 
the  Persians,  or  the  Mahometans  of  the  East  Indies 
than  it  is  in  our  Western  civilization? 

The  same  arguments  apply  to  drink  in  its  relation 
to  poverty.  It  is  commonly  stated  that  most  poverty 
is  due  to  the  ravages  of  drink.  Incidentally  it  may 
be  mentioned  that  the  exhaustive  investigations  of  Mr. 
Charles  Booth  into  the  cause  of  poverty  in  England 
led  him  to  discover  the  surprising  fact  that  only  a 
small  percentage  of  the  paupers  in  the  institutions  he 
examined  owed  their  condition  to  drink.  I  say  the 
fact  is  surprising,  for  I  should  certainly  have  expected 
him  to  find  a  very  different  result ;  not  because  I  believe 
that  drink  is  the  cause  of  poverty,  but  because  I  know 
that  poverty,  for  different  reasons  than  in  the  case  of 
crime,  is  liable  to  engender  a  tendency  to  over-indulge 
in  drink.  Those,  in  fact,  who  think  they  can  remove 
poverty  by  destroying  the  source  of  drink  are  putting 
the  cart  before  the  horse.  Poverty  and  the  misery  that 
trails  in  its  wake  drive  more  men  to  drink  than  vice 
versa,  and  by  saving  human  beings  from  poverty  we 
shall  prevent  far  more  drunkenness  than  we  shall  pre- 
vent poverty  by  saving  men  from  the  temptation  of 
drink.  In  other  words,  there  are  far  more  men  who 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  35 

drink  to  excess  because  they  are  poor  than  there  are 
men  who  are  poor  because  they  drink  to  excess. 

No  one  knows  this  better  than  the  manufacturer  of 
stimulants.  It  may  surprise  many  men  to  hear  that, 
whenever  an  industrial  depression  strikes  the  country, 
the  business  of  the  liquor  manufacturer  is  the  last  to 
feel  its  effects,  and  that  when  trade  once  more  resumes 
its  normal  condition,  again  the  business  of  the  liquor 
manufacturer  is  the  last  to  benefit  by  the  change.  And 
what  is  the  reason?  Trade  depression  throws  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  men  out  of  work.  Misery  results,  and 
the  natural  tendency  is  to  seek  respite  from  misery 
in  drink.  Consequently  a  large  portion  of  what  the 
worker  has  hoarded  for  a  rainy  day  is  spent  in  drink. 
When  it  is  dissipated,  of  course,  he  has  no  longer  the 
wherewithal  to  procure  liquor.  The  moment  trade 
brightens  again  and  he  finds  employment,  his  need  of 
the  comforting  stimulant  has  disappeared,  and  he 
refrains  from  indulging  even  in  moderate  drinking, 
until  he  has  filled  the  void  in  the  home  exchequer  cre- 
ated during  the  period  of  his  misery.  The  conclusion 
here  is  evident  that  poverty  is  the  inciting  cause  of  the 
immoderate  use  of  stimulants,  and  that  the  moment 
that  cause  ceases  to  exist  men  relapse  into  their  normal 
state  of  decency  and  moderation. 

I  am  aware,  of  course,  that  the  origin  of  the  criminal 
propensities  of  one  generation  of  men  is  frequently 
traced  to  the  vicious  habits  of  their  progenitors,  exces- 


36  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

sive  drinking  being  as  usual  assigned  as  the  salient 
primary  cause  of  degeneracy.  Let  us  agree  that  it  is. 
But,  again,  what  does  that  prove?  It  proves  merely 
that  the  father,  or  grandfather,  or  other  ancestor,  of 
the  criminal  subject  belonged  to  that  unfortunate  and 
ever-present  percentage  of  mankind  whose  characters 
are  inherently  weak  and  unstable,  and  it  is  these  char- 
acters that  are  liable  to  pass  from  the  parent  to  the 
offspring,  not  the  particular  vices  they  have  succumbed 
to;  just  as  it  is  not  a  particular  disease  that  is  heredi- 
tary in  certain  families,  but  the  propensity  to  acquire 
that  disease.  In  other  words,  it  is  the  soil  that  is 
handed  down  from  father  to  son,  not  the  seed  or  the 
plant  that  happens  to  thrive  in  that  soil. 

Hence,  it  is  this  soil  that  should  have  the  attention 
of  our  philanthropic  gardeners,  not  the  seeds  that  may 
fall  upon  it.  To  imagine  that  by  erecting  a  fence 
around  it,  the  soil  will  lose  its  peculiar  fitness  for  cer- 
tain undesirable  vegetation  is  no  less  absurd  than  to 
suppose  that  by  withdrawing  from  the  weakling  the 
opportunities  to  indulge  in  a  certain  vice,  let  it  be 
drink  or  any  other  form  of  excess,  his  weak  nature  will 
be  cured  and  thenceforward  rendered  immune  from 
the  temptations  that  beset  it  in  other  directions. 

It  is  extraordinary  to  what  lengths  our  statistical 
friends  are  carried  in  drawing  conclusions  from  the 
mere  concomitancy  of  certain  facts.  Because  there 
are  saloons  which  are  the  haunts  of  the  criminal  classes, 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  37 

therefore,  as  Mr.  Aked  says,  these  saloons  must  be  the 
breeding-ground  of  all  crime,  and  if  they  were  exter- 
minated there  would  no  longer  be  any  criminals. 

The  conclusion  is  arrived  at  by  the  same  faulty 
process  of  logic  as  that  which  results  in  the  assertion 
that  drink  is  the  cause  of  crime  and  poverty.  In  both 
cases  the  only  premise  upon  which  the  conclusion  is 
reached  consists  in  the  circumstance  that  the  propen- 
sity to  drink  and  the  propensity  to  commit  crime  are 
found  to  be  co-existent  in  the  same  individuals.  Is 
there  any  more  reason  for  saying  that  the  criminal 
saloon  is  the  breeding-ground  of  the  criminal  classes 
than  there  is  in  saying  that  the  criminal  classes  are 
the  breeders  of  the  criminal  saloon?  Who  was  there 
first?  The  criminal  or  the  saloon?  If  it  was  the 
saloon,  then  the  saloon  must  have  commenced  its 
existence,  and  continued  to  exist  for  a  long  time, 
without  any  patronage,  and  surely  it  is  an  undeniable 
fact  that  the  existence  of  a  particular  class  of  patronage 
is  a  condition  precedent  to  the  establishment  of  the 
particular  class  of  trade  or  business  that  caters  to  that 
patronage.  It  is  always  the  demand  that  creates  the 
supply,  not  vice  versa,  and  the  failure  to  recognize 
this  patent  fact  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  troubles 
which  our  latter-day  reformers  are  constantly  bringing 
upon  themselves  and  the  unfortunate  world  they  are 
bent  upon  raising  to  a  state  of  perfection. 

I  am  not  advancing  a  plea  here  for  the  existence 


38  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

of  the  criminal  dive,  any  more  than  I  am  pleading 
the  cause  of  the  excessive  drinker.  Both  are  repre- 
hensible, both  are  sore  spots  on  our  civilization.  The 
question  is,  how  can  we  best  remedy  the  evil  and  heal 
the  sores?  I  deny  the  postulate  that,  because  crim- 
inals haunt  a  certain  class  of  saloons,  which  cater  to 
their  needs,  therefore  all  saloons  ought  to  be  abolished, 
just  as  I  oppose  the  proposition  that,  because  some 
people  drink  to  excess,  therefore  moderate  drinking 
should  not  only  be  condemned,  but  made  subject  to  the 
terrible  punishment  the  Reverend  Mr.  Aked  holds  in 
reserve  for  it,  pending  the  arrival  of  a  more  convenient 
time  than  the  present  for  inflicting  it. 

In  the  extravagance  of  his  denunciatory  passion  the 
reverend  gentleman  commits  himself  to  the  startling 
assertion  that  moderate  drinking  is  worse  than  drunk- 
enness, and  in  his  attempt  to  prove  this  assertion  he 
gets  strangely  confused  in  his  statistics  and  his  logic. 
"Every  man  or  woman,"  he  says  in  this  particular  con- 
nection, "familiar  with  the  work  of  the  churches  has 
pondered,  sometimes  almost  in  agony  of  spirit,  the 
problem  presented  by  the  mass  of  smug,  callous  indif- 
ference which  no  preaching  or  pleading  can  pierce." 
And  to  what  cause  does  he  ascribe  this  smug,  callous 
indifference?  I  give  his  own  words:  "The  habitual 
use  of  intoxicating  drink  in  quantities  which  never  go 
beyond  what  is  called  'moderation,'  which  has  never 
caused  drunkenness,  and  which  probably  never  will, 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  39 

creates,  more  than  anything  else  with  which  we  have 
to  do,  the  type  of  character  so  hard  to  move.     *     * 
It  is  not  drunkenness  which  is  the  preacher's  deadliest 
enemy;  it  is  drinking." 

A  strong  statement,  and  a  clinching  one,  assuredly, 
if  it  be  true.  But  is  if  true,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  the  reverend  gentleman  himself?  Listen  to  what 
he  says,  when  he  requires  the  same  statistics  to  prove 
the  need  of  suspending  judgment  against  the  members 
of  the  Church  who  indulge  in  drink.  '  'It  hath  not 
pleased  God  to  give  His  people  salvation  by  dialec- 
tic,' "  he  quotes,  "and  in  many-sided  moral  questions 
there  are  sentiments  most  real  and  potent  which  must 
be  considered,  but  which  can  no  more  be  expressed  in 
syllogism  or  sorites  than  love  can  be  measured  with 
a  yardstick  or  faith  weighed  by  avoirdupois.  Between 
the  earnest  Christian  toiler  on  the  one  hand,  loving 
God  and  loving  men,  genuinely  misled  into  taking 
stimulants  and  sincerely  ignorant  of  his  duty — and 
the  saloonkeeper  and  brewer  on  the  other,  whose  sin 
is  not  accidental,  but  a  trade,  who  earns  a  living  by 
wrecking  the  bodies  and  damning  the  souls  of  men, 
and  who  accumulates  more  money  as  he  accomplishes 
more  iniquity,  there  roll  unfathomed  oceans  of  moral 
distinction.  Some  of  the  best  men  and  women  the 
Church  has  ever  known  have  been  non-abstainers. 

Here  we  have,  then,  an  example  of  the  same  statistics 
brought  to  bear  in  two  ways  upon  the  moderate  drink- 


40  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

ing  habits  of  the  Church  member,  and  leading  of 
necessity  to  two  directly  opposite  conclusions.  And 
if  we  take  these  two  conclusions  and  use  them  as  the 
premise  of  a  new  syllogism,  we  arrive  at  the  final 
grand  conclusion  that  "the  smug,  callously  indifferent 
Church  members"  and  "the  best  men  and  women  the 
Church  has  ever  known"  are  one  and  the  same  people. 

Truly,  a  wonderful  result  of  logic,  or  sorites,  as 
Mr.  Aked — I  wonder  whether  intentionally — calls  his 
syllogistic  process.  I  was  taught  that  the  original 
meaning  of  the  term  sorites  was  the  leading  up  from 
true  premises  to  a  manifestly  false  conclusion.  Did 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Aked  realize  the  peculiar  appro- 
priateness of  the  term  when  he  employed  it  in  refer- 
ence to  his  own  system  of  logic? 

A  line  of  argument,  to  be  convincing,  must  not  only 
be  consistent,  but  it  must  be  sincere.  To  stretch  a  point 
in  order  to  reach  a  desired  conclusion  is  neither  profit- 
able to  the  argument,  nor  is  it  truthful.  To  say,  for  in- 
stance, as  Mr.  Aked  does,  that  people  who  drink  in 
moderation  are  dull  and  heavy  and  stupid,  and  devoid 
of  quick  responsiveness,  generous  ardor,  and  warm- 
hearted zeal,  is  to  state  what  millions  of  people  who 
have  the  same  opportunities  of  observation  as  Mr. 
Aked  has  know  to  be  directly  contrary  to  the  truth. 
The  trouble  with  men  of  Mr.  Aked's  pronounced 
opinions  is  that  they  are  too  apt  to  argue  from  their 
preconceived  conclusions  to  the  premises  necessary  to 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  41 

establish  them,  instead  of  reversing  the  process.  All 
experts  agree  on  the  subject  of  the  dangerous  effects  of 
the  excessive  use  of  alcohol,  but  all  experts  do  not 
agree  on  the  subject  of  the  effects  of  alcohol  when 
consumed  in  moderate  quantities. 

It  may  be  conceded  at  once  that  some  people  should 
not  use  alcohol  in  any  quantities.  But  some  people 
are  also  compelled  to  avoid  dark  meats,  starchy  foods, 
tomatoes,  etc.,  etc.,  because  they  happen  to  be  pre- 
disposed to  certain  ailments  which  such  articles  of  diet 
are  liable  to  aggravate.  A  common  piece  of  expert 
evidence  we  frequently  hear  adduced  in  proof  of  the 
harmful  effects  of  alcohol  is  the  fact  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  certain  quantity  of  liquor  into  the  human  sys- 
tem serves  markedly  to  decrease  the  working  capacity 
of  the  subject.  I  read,  for  instance,  in  a  recent  publi- 
cation that  a  certain  expert  physician  had  found  such 
a  decrease  of  working  capacity  to  be  produced  among 
the  workers  in  a  factory  after  he  had  caused  them  to 
imbibe  thirty-five  grains  (over  an  ounce)  of  alcohol. 
Would  this  scientist  have  been  equally  astonished  to 
find  the  same  decrease  in  the  working  capacity  of 
these  men  produced  by  their  eating  two  meals  at  the 
same  time?  In  the  first  case,  the  writer,  who  bases 
his  argument  on  these  particular  statistics,  reasons 
from  them  that  such  a  thirty-five  gram  dose  of  alcohol 
on  each  week-day  of  the  year  would  suffice  to  keep 
a  man  permanently  alcoholised  to  a  scientifically  meas- 


42  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

ur cable  extent.  Would  it  not  follow,  then,  in  the 
second  case,  that,  because  a  man  suffers  indigestion 
from  eating  two  meals  at  one  time,  his  stomach  must 
become  permanently  ruined  if  he  consumes  two  such 
meals  in  the  course  of  every  twenty- four  hours? 

Everyone  with  any  experience  knows  that  the  in- 
dulgence in  an  appreciable  quantity  of  alcohol  during 
working  hours  is  not  conducive  to  an  increase  of  the 
working  capacity  of  the  person  who  thus  indulges, 
any  more  than  the  eating  of  a  too  hearty  meal  at  mid- 
day is.  All  things  have  their  time  and  their  purpose, 
and  alcohol  is  no  exception.  Why,  then,  accuse  alcohol 
of  that  which  we  condone  or  pass  over  in  silence  in 
the  case  of  all  other  articles  of  diet? 

But  let  me  conclude.  I  have  no  quarrel  with  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Aked  on  account  of  his  selection  and 
application  of  available  statistics,  except  that  I  believe 
he,'  like  many  others,  misapplies  them.  But,*  as  a  fol- 
lower and  worshipper,  however  humble,  of  the  Savior 
of  mankind,  I  have  a  serious  and  righteous  quarrel 
with  him  as  a  mouthpiece  of  that  Savior,  when  he  uses 
his  sacred  office,  not  to  preach  the  word  of  God  to 
those  whom  he  considers  wrongdoers,  but  to  deny 
them  the  comfort  and  the  healing  power  of  that  Word 
which  was  given  to  all  men  alike.  Never  has  the 
extravagance  of  the  movement  which  is  so  deplorably 
misnamed  the  Temperance  movement  been  more  forc- 
ibly and  shockingly  brought  home  to  me  than  it  has 


Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D.  43 

been  by  the  perusal  of  this  article  from  the  pen  of  a 
prominent  Christian  minister.  If  it  has  been  left  to  a 
mere  layman  like  myself  to  lift  his  solitary  voice  in 
protest  against  this  travesty  of  Christ's  message  to  man, 
the  fact  will  not  redound  to  the  credit  of  the  thousands 
of  Christian  ministers  who  stand  by  and  allow  it  to 
pass  unrebuked. 

Fairness  has  always  been  one  of  the  prime  character- 
istics of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  Yet,  strangely  enough, 
to-day  the  extravagant  and  persistent  vituperation  pro- 
ceeding from  a  host  of  men  who,  from  the  nature  of 
their  calling,  can  command  and  hold  the  attention  of 
the  public,  and  who  are  gifted,  above  the  ordinary 
being,  with  the  powers  of  dialectic,  has  so  cowed  the 
generality  of  men  that,  not  only  are  many  fair-minded 
and  disinterested  persons  who  in  their  hearts  disap- 
prove this  violence  and  extravagance  reluctant  to  enter 
the  lists  with  them,  but  to  a  large  extent  the  press 
itself,  for  political  and  other  reasons,  deems  it  wise 
to  close  its  columns,  both  to  these  fair-minded  and  dis- 
interested onlookers  and  to  those  interested  ones  whom 
Mr.  Aked  and  his  adherents  would  see  annihilated, 
body  and  soul,  without  a  trial,  without  a  hearing,  with- 
out even  the  ordinary  human  privileges  which  are  ac- 
corded to  the  humblest  and  meanest  applicant  at  the 
bar  of  public  opinion. 

Every  question,  however  plausible  one  side  of  it  may 
appear,  has  another  side  to  it,  and  the  inability  or  the 


44  Reverend  Charles  F.  Aked,  D.D. 

want  of  opportunity  to  present  that  other  side  must 
not  be  mistaken  for  proof  of  its  weakness  or  its  non- 
existence.  It  is  perhaps  scarcely  fair  to  expect  of  men 
whose  calling  is  purely  commercial  that  they  shall  of  a 
sudden  don  dialectical  armor  and  sally  forth,  lance  in 
hand,  to  give  successful  battle  to  an  army  of  profes- 
sional champions  adept  in  all  the  arts  and  practices 
of  the  polemical  joust.  But  it  may  in  all  fairness  be 
expected  by  these  men,  and  by  the  greater  public,  who 
are  the  final  judges  of  a  tourney,  that  the  one  side, 
when  challenged  to  the  fray,  shall  not  be  deprived  of 
the  use  of  those  weapons  which  the  other  side  is  privi- 
leged to  employ,  and  which  it  is  able  to  employ  with 
all  the  superior  skill  of  the  trained  expert. 

The  present  writer  is  one  of  these  men,  and  he  is 
keenly  alive  to  the  fact  that  he  may  be  lamentably  de- 
ficient in  those  qualities  which  are  necessary  to  enable 
him  to  cope  with  the  intelligence,  the  erudition,  and  the 
rhetorical  powers  of  men  of  Mr.  Aked's  natural  ability 
and  culture.  If  he  is,  let  the  fact  serve  as  proof  of  the 
inequality  of  the  champions,  not  of  the  merit  or  the 
demerit  of  their  respective  causes. 


Some  Reflections  on  the  Moral 
Aspects  of  Prohibition 

From  The  Crown,  August,  1909 

For  the  purpose  of  this  article  it  shall  be  assumed 
that  the  consumption  of  alcoholic  beverages  in  any 
quantities  and  under  any  circumstances  is  entirely  evil. 
This  is  the  avowed  creed  of  the  prohibitionist,  and  for 
argument's  sake  let  it  be  accepted.  His  ultimate  and 
supreme  aim  is  to  destroy  the  demand  of  the  consumer, 
and  as  a  first  step  towards  the  accomplishment  of  that 
aim  he  is  endeavoring  to  compass  the  destruction  of  the 
consumer's  source  of  supply. 

Strategically,  this  policy  would  be  admirable,  but 
for  one  fundamental  flaw  in  it.  It  is  based,  unfor- 
tunately, on  the  fallacious  notion  that  the  supply 
creates  the  demand,  whereas  the  reverse  is  the  case. 
It  is  the  demand  that  creates  the  supply,  and  it  will 
always  create  it  so  long  as  the  earth  and  what  it  pro- 
duces afford  the  means  of  satisfying  the  demand. 

Until,  therefore,  the  guns  of  the  prohibitionists  are 
directed  against  the  consumer  himself  the  warfare  of 
prohibition  will  remain  what  it  is  to-day,  merely  de- 
structive of  the  control  and  regulation  of  the  liquor 
traffic,  not  of  that  traffic  itself.  At  some  future  date, 


46  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

perhaps,  if  prohibition  honestly  means  what  it  pro- 
fesses, the  consumer  will  become  the  main  point  of 
attack,  and  then  the  tug  of  war  will  commence  in  real 
earnest.  It  lies  indeed  logically  in  the  nature  of  things 
that,  if  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  drink  is  a  crime, 
the  purchase  and  consumption  of  drink  should  also  be 
held  to  be  criminal.  The  only  problem  is  whether  that 
which  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  regarded  as  a  crime 
can  be  arbitrarily  made  such.  The  question  may  seem 
futile,  and  yet  it  is  the  crucial  question  upon  which 
ultimately  the  success  or  non-success  of  prohibition 
hinges.  Supposing,  for  instance,  that  all  the  laws  of 
the  universe  were  to  combine  to  make,  not  only  the 
manufacture  and  sale,  but  also  the  act  of  drinking 
liquor  itself  a  crime,  would  not  human  nature  revolt 
against  the  interference  with  the  personal  rights  of  the 
individual,  and  "defy  the  laws?  It  is  very  much  to  be 
feared  that  it  would.  The  law  cannot  arbitrarily  de- 
clare an  act  to  be  criminal.  Crime  is  something  of  an 
already  fixed  and  well-defined  character,  and  the  law 
merely  deals  with  it  where  it  finds  it. 

To  confound  what  is  termed  crime  with  what  is 
termed  sin  or  vice  is  a  common  error,  into  which, 
unfortunately,  men  of  a  certain  trend  of  thought  are 
peculiarly  liable  to  fall,  and  when  they  do  so,  and 
endeavor  to  inflict  the  consequences  of  this  error  upon 
their  fellow-beings,  the  result  is  invariably  social  dis- 
turbance, such  as  is  now  convulsing  our  nation  from 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  47 

one  end  to  the  other.  Some  evils  are  not  remediable  by 
law,  and  sin  and  vice  are  of  this  category  of  evils.  A 
man  who  drinks  liquor  may  be  guilty  of  a  sin.  But  it  is 
a  sin  against  himself  alone,  and  however  much  an  indi- 
vidual may  sin  against  himself,  in  the  light  of  human 
justice  his  sin  is  not  criminal.  It  can  only  become  crim- 
inal when  it  injures  his  neighbor.  All  laws  to  which  the 
person  of  the  citizen  is  amenable  are  made  to  protect 
one  individual  from  the  undue  encroachment  of  his  fel- 
lows, not  to  protect  him  against  himself.  Hence,  if  a  man 
drinks  to  excess  and  appears  publicly  in  the  condition 
known  in  police  court  parlance  as  "drunk  and  disor- 
derly," he  is  arrested  and  punished,  not  because  he  has 
drunk  to  excess.  That  is  his  affair.  But  because  his 
condition  is  a  menace  and  an  offence  to  the  community. 
An  individual's  morals,  in  short,  are  his  own  concern; 
his  immorality  can  only  become  criminal  when  it  affects 
others  and  threatens  their  interests  or  welfare. 

Possibly  the  advocates  of  prohibition  may  recognize 
this  fact,  and  realizing  that  a  law  against  drinking 
in  itself  would  be  manifestly  inadequate  to  compel  that 
general  obedience  which  alone  makes  law  effective,  they 
rely  for  the  present  upon  the  enactment  of  such  statutes 
as  will  hedge  in  the  willing  drinker  with  restrictions  and 
impediments  calculated  to  render  the  obtaining  of  liquor 
by  him  a  practical  impossibility.  Their  object,  and  a 
very  praiseworthy  object,  of  course,  is  to  remove  temp- 
tation from  the  weak.  But  here,  too,  unfortunately, 


48  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

they  are  confronted  with  an  insuperable  obstacle  in  the 
lack  of  that  common  consent  of  the  people  at  large 
without  which  all  such  statutes  must  needs  fail  in  their 
operation.  For,  in  order  to  thus  successfully  remove 
temptation  from  the  weak,  a  personal  sacrifice  on  the 
part  of  all  those  who  are  strong,  and  who  have  no 
cause  to  fear  temptation — and  they  admittedly  far 
outnumber  the  weak — is  the  primary  requisite,  and 
human  beings  are  not  yet  divine  enough  to  voluntarily 
sacrifice  their  liberties  for  others.  Compulsory  phil- 
anthropy, on  the  other  hand,  is  a  hybrid  monstrosity, 
and  is  neither  human  nor  divine. 

I  once  knew  an  Englishwoman  who  was  a  great 
charity  worker,  and  who  told  me  that  she  had  taken  the 
pledge  to  abstain  from  drinking  alcoholic  beverages. 
I  suggested,  rather  rashly,  that  this  act  was  a  con- 
fession of  weakness  on  her  part.  She  answered:  "No, 
it  is  not.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  like  a  glass  of  wine, 
and  see  no  harm  in  it.  But  I  often  have  occasion  to 
urge  others,  weaker  than  myself,  to  take  the  pledge, 
and  I  feel  that  I  have  no  right  to  ask  my  neighbor  to 
do  that  which  I  am  not  willing  to  do  myself."  To  that 
argument  I  can  conceive  no  valid  answer.  On  the 
contrary,  I  think  its  force  must  be  admitted.  This 
lady  was  in  favor  of  self-prohibition,  and  in  order  to 
promote  self-prohibition  she  voluntarily  forewent  the 
gratification  of  her  own  tastes  and  desires,  though 
she  saw  no  harm  therein  to  herself.  And  is  not  here 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  49 

the  vital  difference  between  her  attitude  and  that  of 
our  latter-day  prohibitionists?  What  this  lady  did 
voluntarily  they  would  force  everyone  to  do  by  legal 
enactment ;  and  that,  as  experience  proves,  is  impossible. 

This  same  lady,  though  very  wealthy,  made  a  point 
of  refraining  from  exhibiting  any  outward  evidence  of 
her  wealth.  She  wore  no  jewelry,  in  fact  she  possessed 
none;  her  dress  was  of  the  simplest,  and  her  home  sur- 
roundings were  modest  enough  to  satisfy  the  preju- 
dices of  the  most  exigent  socialist.  "I  am  a  lover  of 
things  of  beauty,"  she  explained,  "and  by  no  means 
despise  luxury.  But  I  believe  that  the  flaunting  of  our 
riches  in-  the  face  of  so  much  poverty  that  exists  around 
us  is  the  source  of  much  of  the  discontent  and  the  envy 
which  eats  at  the  hearts  of  the  poor,  and  tempts  the 
needy  to  commit  crime.  The  exhibition  of  valuable 
jewelry,  for  instance,  has  to  my  knowledge  put  the 
thought  of  theft  into  the  minds  of  men  who  had  pre- 
viously never  harbored  the  notion  of  relieving  their 
needs  by  stealing.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  neither 
wear  nor  keep  jewelry,  because  it  might  serve .  as  a 
temptation  to  those  who  are  in  want,  or  who  have  a 
propensity  to  steal." 

An  admirable  specimen  of  self-sacrifice,  to  be  sure. 
Everyone  will  admit  that.  But  could  this  self-imposed 
obligation  be  legally  or  reasonably  imposed  upon  all 
men  and  women?  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  display 
of  articles  of  value  on  the  person  or  in  the  show  win- 


50  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

dows  of  stores  tempts  many  a  weak"  individual  to 
commit  theft,  and  if  the  opportunity  were  removed  our 
weaker  brother  would  not  succumb  to  his  weakness. 
But  are  we,  therefore,  to  have  no  stores  that  display 
goods,  no  men  or  women  that  wear  jewelry,  and  are  we 
to  eschew  all  luxury,  because  among  the  many  who  do 
not  possess  it  there  are  a  few  who  might  be  saved  from 
the  commission  of  crimes  if  there  were  no  luxury  to 
tempt  them? 

The  question  may  sound  absurd  to  the  unthinking 
reader.  And  yet,  if  he  will  reflect  a  moment  he  will 
admit  that  from  the  ideal  Christian  standpoint  the 
answer  to  it  should  be  "yes<"  Indeed,  viewed  from 
that  standpoint,  no  sacrifice  should  be  considered  too 
great  to  save  our  fellow-beings  from  committing  a 
wrong.  We -are  living,  however,  not  in  an  ideal,  but 
in  a  practical  world.  God's  law  tells  us  to  be  good  in 
ourselves.  Human  law  can  do  no  more  than  restrain 
us  from  doing  wrong  to  others.  If  it  attempts  to  go 
further  than  that,  it  touches  what  for  the  want  of  a 
better  term  we  call  our  personal  liberty.  No  law  can 
suppress  or  govern  a  man's  thoughts,  or  his  beliefs, 
or  his  desires,  or  his  appetites.  It  can*  only  so  regulate 
his  exercise  of  them  as  to  prevent  him  from  thereby 
interfering  with  the  rights,  or  endangering  the  safety 
of  his  neighbors. 

Perhaps  I  should  apologize  for  using  the  term  per- 
sonal liberty.  It  has  been  subjected  of  late  to  a  good 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  J5L 

deal  of  sneering  criticism  on  the  part  of  those  who  favor 
sumptuary  legislation.  And  the  reason  is  not  without 
interest.  "What  is  the  definition  of  personal  liberty?" 
these  men  say.  "Who  is  to  be  the  judge  of  the  limits 
of  personal  liberty?  Laws  are  made  by  the  majority 
of  the  people,  and  if  the  majority  decides  that  a  law 
does  not  infringe  personal  liberty,  who  shall  gainsay 
it?" 

The  answer  seems  to  me  to  be  very  simple.  Un- 
doubtedly the  people,  as  a  whole,  will  gainsay  it,  and 
among  that  whole,  as  prohibition  itself  is  proving  every 
day,  a  goodly  number  of  the  very  persons  who,  as  a 
majority,  have  ignorantly  meddled  with  their  own 
and  their  neighbors'  private  rights.  There  is  no  need 
to  define  what  those  private  rights  are.  The  history 
of  government  has  long  ago  defined  them,  and  their 
limits  have  been  set,  and  will  always  be  set,  by  actual 
experience.  The  true  measure  of  personal  liberty,  in 
other  words,  is  determined  simply  by  the  inability  of 
law  to  curtail  it.  To  put  it  differently,  the  power  of 
law  is  limited  by  the  possibility  of  its  execution.  Let 
the  majority  which  passes  a  law  be  ever  so  large,  if 
that  law  infringes  the  personal  rights  of  the  individual, 
it  will  be  ineffective  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  is 
enacted,  even  though  it  have  all  the  might  of  a  despotic 
government  behind  it  to  enforce  its  observance.  Per- 
sonal liberty,  in  brief,  is  that  which  no  law  framed 
by  human  mind  can  successfully  abridge.  A  law 


52  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

framed  with  that  object  in  view  may  do  untold  damage, 
it  may  work  the  greatest  injustice,  but  it  will  never 
succeed  in  that  which  it  aims  to  accomplish,  namely, 
to  determine  and  control  the  actions  of  the  individual  in 
such  matters  as  concern  himself  alone. 

The  best  proof  of  all  this,  as  has  been  intimated,  is 
afforded  by  prohibition  itself.  Prohibition  has  proved 
a  deplorable  failure  wherever  it  has  been  attempted. 
And  it  has  proved  more  than  a  failure.  It  has  in- 
creased and  multiplied  the  very  evils  it  aimed  to  erad- 
icate, and  has  added  to  those  evils  others  of  a  character 
scarcely  less  reprehensible  than  those  it  has  failed  to 
correct.  This  is  no  random  statement.  The  so-called 
drink  evil  has  been  emphasized  and  increased  wherever 
the  legal  sale  of  liquor  has  been  rendered  impossible. 
The  drunkard  there  is  the  drunkard  still,  but  asso- 
ciated with  him  now  are  thousands  of  hypocrites  and 
law-breakers  who  were  formerly  comparatively  upright 
and  honest  men.  Naturally,  such  drinks  as  most  easily 
evade  the  eye  of  the  law  are  those  most  in  demand 
in  such  districts,  and  ardent  spirits  are  just  such 
drinks.  To  sell  in  such  territory  is  made  a  crime; 
consequently  the  demand  of  those  living  in  it,  whose 
requirements  will  be  satisfied  in  spite  of  all  law,  is 
supplied,  not  by  reputable  and  conscientious  manufac- 
turers and  dealers,  but  by  people  who  care  for  no  law 
and  whose  conscience  is  non-existent.  The  liquors 
that  enter  these  territories  and  are  sold  to  the  masses 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  53 

are  for  the  most  part  of  the  worst  possible  kind.  A 
man  cannot  question  what  he  buys  from  a  bootlegger  or 
in  a  speak-easy,  and  being  deprived  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  obtain  comparatively  good,  wholesome  bever- 
ages, he  takes  what  he  can  get,  which  is,  in  most  cases, 
rank  poison. 

Some  prohibitionists,  who  are  wise  and  honest  enough 
to  recognize  and  admit  these  patent  facts,  say:  "Oh, 
but  wait  until  we  have  really  perfected  prohibition, 
and  not  only  barred  the  shipment  of  liquors  into  pro- 
hibition States,  but  have  placed  a  ban  on  their  im- 
portation from  abroad."  Well,  supposing  such  a 
thing  were  feasible,  and  presumably  it  is,  what  would 
be  the  result?  Can  a  law  arrest  the  developments  of 
nature?  Will  the  grape  cease  to  ripen,  and  corn  and 
rye  and  barley  refuse  to  lend  themselves  to  the  process 
of  fermentation  at  the  behest  of  the  United  States 
government  or  of  any  other  human  government?  Most 
assuredly  not.  Hence,  if  laws  could  really  bring 
about  a  condition  under  which,  not  only  the  local 
manufacture  and  sale,  but  also  the  importation  of 
liquor  were  rendered  impossible,  would  not  every 
person  desiring  a  stimulant  become  his  own  manu- 
facturer? And  what  would  his  product  be?  Not 
much  superior  to  the  decoctions  which  the  savage  pre- 
pares for  himself,  and  the  imbibing  of  which  drives  him, 
as  a  rule,  temporarily  mad.  In  former  times,  before 
science  and  commerce  had  reached  their  present  stages, 


54  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

home-brewed  ale  was  the  common  drink  in  many  houses. 
Could  any  law  prevent  a  man  from  brewing  ale  in  his 
own  home  for  his  own  and  his  friends'  use?  Or  brew- 
ing stronger  drinks,  according  to  such  primitive  meth- 
ods as  the  circumstances  would  permit  of  his  employ- 
ing? And  is  there  anyone  so  hardy  as  to  assert  that 
such  home-made  substitutes  for  the  scientifically  pre- 
pared article  are  better,  or  purer,  or  less  harmful  than 
those  which  are  now  manufactured,  sold  and  consumed 
under  proper  supervision  of  the  law? 

So  much,  then,  for  the  ineffectiveness  of  prohibition, 
which  is  so  glaring  a  fact  that  no  one  who  has  actually 
studied  the  conditions  prevailing  where  prohibition 
in  its  various  forms  has  been  attempted  can  deny  it.  A 
far  more  serious  question,  rendered  doubly  serious  in 
the  light  of  prohibition's  manifest  failure  to  prohibit, 
is  the  disastrous  moral  effect  of  the  movement  which 
is  making  itself  felt  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  this  fair  land. 

It  is  the  old  story  of  the  consequences  of  extravagant 
and  exaggerated  development,  whether  religious,  social, 
industrial  or  economical;  namely,  temporary  moral  ret- 
rogression, from  which  it  takes  civilization  years  to 
recover  and  start  once  more  afresh  upon  the  inevitable 
slow  forward  movement  of  social  progress.  More 
harm  has  been  done  by  the  unwise  efforts  of  zealous, 
though  well-meaning  reformers  to  bring  humanity  to 
a  state  of  perfection  by  one  stupendous  forward  push 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  55 

than  the  combined  misdeeds  of  all  the  unscrupulous 
miscreants  of  history  have  accomplished.  The  fact 
is  sad  but  true,  and  the  results  of  the  prohibition  move- 
ment are  one  more  instance  in  proof  of  it. 

Perhaps  the  most  distressing  feature  among  the 
consequences  of  this  movement,  fostered  as  it  is  by  a 
strongly  organized  sectarian  church  power,  is  the 
moral  cowardice  which  it  has  engendered  in  the  public 
at  large.  The  impulse  to  swim  with  the  tide,  and  not 
against  it,  is  innate  in  the  human  animal.  The  emo- 
tional tide  of  so-called  temperance  sentiment  which  is 
sweeping  over  the  land  to-day  is  carrying  thousands, 
if  not  millions,  with  it,  whose  true  sympathies  are  not 
with  those  who  have  caused  this  tide,  but  who  swim  with 
it  because  they  have  not  the  moral  courage  to  admit 
convictions  which  appear  contrary  to  the  popular  trend. 
There  are  thousands  and  thousands  of  men  in  this 
country  who  openly  profess  allegiance  to  this  cause, 
but  who  are  privately  and  in  secret  opposed  to  it. 
They  help  to  advance  it,  and  are  the  very  ones  who 
make  it  the  farce  it  is  when  once  it  has  apparently 
succeeded. 

This  assertion  may  seem  at  first  sight  difficult  to 
substantiate.  But,  unfortunately,  the  proof  is  only 
too  easy  to  adduce.  Statistics  show  that  an  over- 
whelming majority  of  men  in  this  country  indulge  in 
drink.  The  percentage  is  put  as  high  as  ninety-three 
and  as  low  as  seventy-five.  The  fact  that  in  many 


56  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

cases  a  majority  of  these  same  men  vote  for  prohibition 
proves  either  one  of  two  things.  Either  there  are 
far  more  philanthropists  in  the  world  of  the  calibre 
of  the  lady  I  referred  to  earlier  in  this  article,  or  there 
are  more  hypocrites  among  us  than  it  is  agreeable  to 
believe.  That  this  majority  of  prohibition  voters  does 
not  consist  of  men  who  distrust  their  own  ability  to 
withstand  the  temptation  to  indulge  to  excess,  and 
who  therefore  welcome  laws  to  restrain  themselves,  is 
proved  by  the  fact,  again  attested  by  the  incon- 
trovertible evidence  of  government  statistics,  that  only 
a  comparatively  small  percentage  of  those  who  drink 
do  so  immoderately.  Which,  then,  of  the  two  above- 
mentioned  alternatives  is  true?  I  leave  it  to  those 
better  qualified  to  judge  the  true  inwardness  of  man- 
kind to  decide  whether  the  philanthropists  or  the 
hypocrites  are  likely  to  be  the  more  numerous  among 
us. 

Now  what  is  the  moral  effect  of  all  this?  An  English 
Archbishop  once  said:  "Better  England  free  than 
England  sober."  Would  it  not  be  more  to  the  point 
to  say  here:  "Better  Americans  honest  than  America 
sober?"  Indeed,  if  the  quasi-sobriety  here  implied  is 
to  be  part  of  American  religion,  can  we  not  go  further 
and  say:  "Better  Americans  honest  than  America 
thus  religious?" 

The  prohibition  movement  is  admittedly  a  church 
movement,  and  in  criticising  its  results  it  is  impossible 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  57 

to  avoid  criticising  that  which  inspires  and  promotes 
it.  And  do  we  not  find  in  this  particular  branch  of 
church  work  the  same  abiding  fault  that  characterizes 
the  work  of  certain  churches  as  a  whole,  namely,  the 
attempt  to  force  reason  to  subordinate  itself  to  dogma, 
instead  of  the  reverse? 

The  honesty  and  the  courage  of  a  man's  convictions, 
however  mistaken  they  may  be,  are  morally  more  up- 
lifting to  him  than  all  the  forms  of  religion  which  he 
may  make  a  show  of  following  because  someone  else 
tells  him  he  must  accept  them,  and  he  believes  that 
popular  opinion  will  condemn  him  unless  he  does  so. 
The  clergy  of  our  day  are  constantly  deploring  the 
emptiness  of  their  churches.  Have  they  ever  considered 
that  the  man  who  stays  away  from  church  because 
he  cannot  subscribe  to  much  that  he  considers  illogical 
and  contradictory  in  the  teachings  and  the  doctrines  of 
its  ministers  is  far  more  honest  and  true  to  that  intelli- 
gence with  which  God  has  endowed  him,  than  is  he 
who  either  represses  that  intelligence,  subordinating 
it  to  the  will  and  dictates  of  others,  or  who  merely  pre- 
tends that  his  reason  is  in  accord  with  all  he  is  called 
upon  to  think  and  believe?  And  how  many  of  those 
who  parade  as  church-goers  are  at  heart  in  accord 
with  all  that  they  hear  and  are  called  upon  to  profess 
in  the  churches  they  worship  in?  It  may  appear  to  be 
a  strong  statement,  but  I  am  firmly  convinced  that 
there  are  as  many  true  worshippers  of  God  among 


58  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

those  whose  absence  from  divine  service  our  clergy 
so  deeply  deplore,  as  there  are  among  those  whom  the 
clergy  count  as  the  props  of  religion. 

Extravagance  and  exaggeration  may  work  upon 
the  emotions  of  men,  but  it  is  this  same  extravagance 
and  this  same  exaggeration  that  drive  the  sober-minded 
from  the  fold,  and  the  stubborn  adherence  to  manifestly 
obsolete  and  exploded  tenets,  which  is  the  bane  of 
some  of  our  present  day  clergy,  too  often  completes 
the  work  of  alienating  from  the  church  the  very  ele- 
ments that,  if  retained,  would  constitute  its  real 
strength.  Progress  is  the  keynote  of  everything  human. 
Yet,  is  it  not  religion,  the  one  and  most  important 
of  mankind's  possessions,  which  in  many  instances  has 
refused  to  progress  and  thereby  allowed  itself  to  be 
left  behind  in  the  general  forward  and  upward  trend 
of  humanity? 

To  be  sure,  the  grip  which  these  churches  still  hold 
upon  the  emotions  of  the  people  is  a  stupendous  source 
of  power.  But  is  this  a  power  that  will  endure  ?  That 
which  we  obtain  solely  through  the  emotions  of  men 
is  evanescent  as  are  the  emotions  themselves.  Reason 
alone  is  lasting.  Where  the  two  conflict,  victory  for 
a  brief  space  may  be  with  the  former,  but  ultimately 
the  latter  must  always  prevail.  In  the  interval,  while 
reason  is  compelled  by  emotion  to  conform  itself  to 
dogma,  it  becomes  hypocritical,  and  truth  and  religion 
are  no  longer  inside  the  Church,  but  outside  of  it. 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  59 

Analyze  the  prohibition  movement,  and  does  not  the 
same  assertion  hold  good?  It  is  primarily  the  work  of 
emotional  sentiment.  Calm  reason  either  stands  aloof, 
or,  fearing  disapproval,  joins  the  throng  of  emotional- 
ists in  some  hypocritical  disguise.  Consequently,  there 
are  more  true  believers  in  temperance,  more  honest 
workers  for  its  cause,  among  the  few  who  frankly  and 
openly  oppose  prohibition  as  exaggerated  and  foolish 
than  there  are  among  the  many  who  profess  to  see 
in  prohibition  the  promise  of  the  future  millennium. 
The  thousands  and  thousands  of  so-called  temperance 
men  who  surreptitiously  obtain  liquor  in  the  territory 
they  have  been  instrumental  in  declaring  dry,  and  who 
secretly  indulge  in  what  they  openly  profess  to  con- 
demn, are  glaring  proofs  of  the  correctness  of  this 
statement. 

Again,  look  at  actual  statistics  for  corroborative 
proof.  In  an  article  in  the  last  November  issue  of  the 
Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and 
Social  Science,  Mr.  J.  C.  Jackson,  editor  of  the  Ameri- 
can Issue,  the  official  organ  of  the  Anti- Saloon  League, 
writing  about  the  work  of  that  League,  winds  up  with 
the  following  startling  statement:  "As  a  result  of 
these  united  efforts,  in  which  the  League  has  been  the 
principal  bond  of  late  years  *  *  *  some  38,000,000 
population  (in  the  United  States)  is  under  one  form 
or  another  of  prohibition — nearly  one-half  the  popu- 
lation of  the  United  States." 


60  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

And  mark  you,  good  reader,  the  major  portion  of 
this  result  has  been  obtained  during  the  last  thirteen 
years.  Now  compare  with  this  statement  the  govern- 
ment's statistics  regarding  the  sale  of  intoxicating 
beverages  in  this  same  United  States  during  the  period 
mentioned.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  practically  half 
America  is  alleged  to  have  had  its  source  of  drink 
supply  cut  off  in  these  thirteen  years,  the  sales  of 
malt  beverages  have  increased  from  fifteen  gallons 
per  capita  to  twenty-two  gallons  per  capita,  or  roughly 
forty-six  per  cent,  and  the  sales  of  distilled  whiskey 
from  1.05  gallons  per  capita  to  1.58  gallons  per  capita, 
or  over  50  per  cent. 

Is  there  any  rational  being  who  will  claim  that  this 
enormous  increase  in  the  consumption  of  liquor  in  face 
of  the  alleged  extraordinary  success  of  the  prohibition 
movement  is  due  to  the  increased  propensity  to  drink 
on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  wet  territory  only? 
If  such  were  the  case,  a  simple  arithmetical  calculation 
will  show  that  the  population  in  the  wet  territory  must 
have  trebled  its  per  capita  consumption  of  liquor  in 
thirteen  years,  a  manifest  absurdity. 

By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  The  prohibi- 
tionist, unfortunately,  has  proved  to  be  the  best  sales- 
man the  dealer  in  strong  drink  has.  As  an  evidence 
of  this  fact  I  can  cite  the  following  instructive  inci- 
dent, for  the  truth  of  which  I  can  personally  vouch. 
In  the  course  of  a  recent  political  campaign  in  which 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  61 

the  liberal  elements  of  a  certain  State  organized  for 
the  purpose  of  defeating  the  efforts  of  the  prohi- 
bition party  to  elect  a  legislature  favorable  to  its 
cause,  appeals  were  issued  to  the  public  at  large 
for  funds  in  support  of  the  liberal  movement,  and 
among  others  a  certain  well-known  and  powerful 
national  combination  of  liquor  dealers,  whose  business 
methods,  by  the  way,  are  not  approved  by  the  reputable 
manufacturers  in  the  country,  was  approached  with 
the  request  for  a  contribution.  The  answer  received 
was  a  categorical  refusal,  coupled  with  the  statement 
that  the  appeal  to  these  men  meant  practically  that 
they  should  contribute  towards  the  curtailment  of  their 
own  business.  "If  we  knew  of  any  means,"  the  com- 
munication ran,  "by  which  we  could,  either  directly  or 
indirectly,  contribute  towards  the  funds  of  the  pro- 
hibition party,  we  would  gladly  avail  ourselves  of  the 
same,  since  our  sales  increase  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
increase  of  prohibition  territory."  This  fact,  of  course, 
is  notorious,  as  probably  every  reputable  liquor  firm 
will  admit,  which  sees  what  it  considers  its  legitimate 
market  snatched  from  it  by  the  prohibitionists  and 
handed  over  to  the  purveyor  of  the  bootlegger  and 
speak-easy  proprietor,  who  care  little  what  they  buy, 
provided  the  profit  is  commensurate  with  the  risks 
they  undertake  in  selling. 

In  short,  the  moment  a  territory  is   declared   dry 
the  sales  of  every  variety   of   ardent  spirits   in  that 


62  .  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

territory  increases  by  leaps  and  bounds,  because  the 
lighter  beverages  are  not  so  easy  to  ship  nor  so  easy 
to  conceal.  Beer,  for  instance,  is  almost  entirely  ex- 
cluded from  such  territories.  Yet  the  sale  of  beer  has 
increased  during  these  thirteen  years  of  the  victorious 
reign  of  prohibition  by  nearly  fifty  per  cent,  with 
practically  only  half  the  territory  it  formerly  had  to 
supply. 

Does  the  public  realize  what  this  indicates?  It  indi- 
cates as  surely  the  progress  of  real  temperance  in 
those  territories  that  have  been  spared  the  tender 
mercies  of  prohibition  as  it  does  the  increase  of  the 
real  drink  evil  in  those  territories  which  have  been 
placed  under  the  prohibition  ban.  For,  mark  this. 
The  enormous  growth  in  the  consumption  of  beer 
does  not  imply  a  proportionate  growth  in  the  con- 
sumption of  alcohol,  but  rather  the  substitution  of 
the  lighter,  though  more  bulky,  beverage  for  the 
stronger  drink,  the  surest  sign  of  advancing  temper- 
ance. In  other  words,  the  increase  in  the  consumption 
of  strong  drinks  takes  place  in  dry  territories  under 
the  auspices  of  prohibition,  while  the  lighter  beverage 
is  steadily  driving  out  the  ardent  spirits  in  territories 
left  wet. 

What  an  object  lesson  for  the  misguided  friends  of 
temperance!  And  for  this  men  are  -perforce  made 
hypocrites  and  dissemblers  and  cowards  by  the  thou- 
sands and  the  millions.  Can  this  be  the  aim  of  the 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  63 

church?  If  so,  I  repeat  that  truth  and  religion  are 
no  longer  inside  the  church,  but  outside  of  it. 

In  view  of  the  foregoing,  it  may  well  be  asked  if  it 
can  be  possible  that  the  men  who  have  inaugurated  this 
movement,  and  who  continue  to  further  it,  are  blind, 
not  only  to  its  failure  to  accomplish  what  it  purports 
to  accomplish,  but  also  to  the  moral  disease  which  is 
being  spread  among  the  people  at  large  in  consequence 
of  that  failure.  It  is  scarcely  compatible  with  the 
undoubted  intelligence  that  is  directing  the  movement 
to  assume  such  blindness  on  its  part  to  be  possible. 
And  yet,  for  what  reason  should  men,  many  of  whom 
claim  to  be  God's  workers  on  earth,  deliberately  persist 
in  an  undertaking,  the  only  result  of  which  is  the 
corruption  of  men's  characters  and  their  perversion 
from  that  which  is  upright  and  true? 

To  anyone  who  has  gained  a  glimpse  of  the  inside 
of  the  organization  which  is  doing  the  major  portion 
of  this  work  it  must  be  abundantly  apparent  that  there 
are  some  who  are  engaged  in  promoting  its  aims  simply 
for  the  sake  of  the  material  advantage  there  is  in  it 
to  themselves?  But  this  is  no  satisfactory  or  sufficient 
answer  to  our  question.  It  is  unfortunately  true  that 
many  of  those  who  pose  before  the  public  in  the  ultra- 
popular  guise  of  the  prohibition  worker  are  actuated 
primarily  by  mercenary  motives.  If  it  were  not  in- 
vidious to  do  so,  I  could  refer  by  name  to  a  number 
of  well-known  characters  of  this  description,  who 


64  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

publicly  exhibit  their  frenzy  for  pay — and  not  for 
moderate  pay,  either,  but  for  pay  which,  like  that  of 
the  actor  or  the  professional  platform  entertainer,  is 
proportioned  to  their  skill  in  communicating  their 
frenzy  to  the  ignorant  and  unsophisticated  crowds  that 
listen  to  them.  This  is  business,  of  course,  and  not  bad 
business,  at  that.  But  when  philanthropy  enters  the 
field  of  ordinary  commerce,  it  becomes,  to  say  the  least, 
a  trifle  suspicious.  Have  we  not  recently  witnessed 
even  the  spectacle  of  a  Governor  of  a  State,  who  plies 
a  lucrative  trade  as  a  prohibition  agitator,  and  whose 
philanthropy  would  not  permit  him  to  commence  a 
promised  address  on  temperance  before  a  meeting  of 
young  Sunday-school  children  in  a  poor  rural  com- 
munity until  he  had  been  handed  a  check  for  $25.00, 
the  agreed  stipend  which  he  required  to  set  his  phil- 
anthropical  machinery  in  motion? 

These  are  unpleasant  facts,  and  their  unpleasantness 
is  not  lessened  by  the  circumstance  that  all  these  peo- 
ple are  employed  by  an  organization  which  collects 
its  funds  mainly  in  the  churches  and  disburses  them 
with  lavish  hand  among  all  and  any  who  can  prove 
their  aptitude  to  arouse  the  hysterical  passions  of  the 
multitude.  But,  notwithstanding  this  be  true,  and 
notwithstanding  the  instruments  through  which  the 
results  under  review  are  being  produced,  may  be  in 
many  instances  unworthy  and  even  despicable,  it  is 
equally  true  that  there  are  men  of  unquestionable  in- 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  65 

tegrity  and  honesty  of  purpose  who  continue  to  lend 
their  powerful  aid  and  influence  to  the  perpetuation  of 
a  cause  whose  ultimate  victory  is  impossible  and  whose 
present  success  is  notoriously  disastrous. 

Why  is  this?  Is  there  some  ulterior  purpose  at  the 
bottom  of  this  entire  movement?  Some  purpose  of 
so  exalted  a  nature,  in  the  minds  of  those  who  are 
furthering  it,  that  they  willingly  and  knowingly  use 
a  temporary  craze  that  has  seized,  or  been  produced 
in,  the  people's  mind  as  a  convenient  instrument  by 
which  to  accomplish  that  purpose,  even  though  it 
cause  temporary  evil? 

And  of  what  nature  can  such  purpose  be?  Let  us 
be  frank,  and  face  this  question  fairly  and  squarely. 
There  is  an  old  German  saw  which  says:  "Tell  me 
what  company  you  keep  and  I  will  tell  you  what  you 
are."  If  there  is  any  wisdom  in  this  saw,  its  appli- 
cation to  the  present  case  may  afford  us  some  enlight- 
enment on  the  subject  that  is  puzzling  us.  We  are 
accustomed,  of  course,  to  see  philanthropy  and  religion 
go  hand  in  hand,  nor  can  the  work  of  the  churches  in 
the  cause  of  temperance  and  decency  be  otherwise  than 
heartily  welcomed  and  commended.  But,  of  all  strange 
bedfellows  philanthropy  and  politics  are  certainly  the 
strangest,  and  the  political  bedfellowship  of  our 
religious  philanthropic  friend  prohibition  is  unfor- 
tunately its  salient,  though  not  its  most  attractive 
feature.  If  we  go  further,  and  inquire  what  is  the 


66  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

center  from  which  this  entire  agitation  is  being  polit- 
ically manipulated  and  controlled,  we  find  conditions 
which  to  the  observant  reader  of  history  suggest  possi- 
bilities of  a  rather  startling  character.  I  allude  here, 
to  put  it  more  plainly,  to  the  fact,  which  cannot  be 
denied,  of  the  overwhelming  predominance  in  the 
ranks  of  the  active  political  prohibition  army  of  the 
clergy  and  lay  brotherhood  of  one  particular  religious 
denomination  among  the  many  of  which  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  boasts.  Far  be  it  from  me,  of  course,  to 
question  the  propriety  of  any  particular  church  or  sect 
carrying  on  a  philanthropic  propaganda  of  its  own. 
No  one,  indeed,  will  deny  the  right,  nay  the  duty,  of 
any  religious  association  to  exert  all  its  influence  in 
advocating  and  promoting  that  which  it  believes  to  be 
essential  to  the  moral  welfare  of  humanity.  There 
will  be  few,  however,  who  will  not  agree  with  me  when 
I  say  that  a  political  propaganda  carried  on  by  or 
under  the  auspices  of  a  religious  body  is  extremely 
dangerous,  let  the  ostensible  purpose  for  which  such 
propaganda  is  made  be  ever  so  noble  and  meritorious. 
And  when  such  purpose  signally  fails,  as  is  the  case 
in  this  instance,  without  any  abatement  of  the  growth 
and  the  use  of  the  political  power  gained  by  those  who 
are  pursuing  it,  is  it  not  natural  to  suspect  that  this 
purpose  is  being  used  as  a  cloak  to  conceal  objects  of  a 
more  far-reaching  nature,  for  the  attainment  of  which 
the  control  of  the  government  machine  is  desired? 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  67 

Whether  this  suspicion  be  justified  or  not,  it  is  always 
deplorable  when  a  church  departs  from  its  God-given 
function  to  educate  and  inspire  its  children  and  elevate 
men's  minds  and  hearts  above  the  sordid  level  of  mun- 
dane affairs,  for  it  cannot  mix  in  these  affairs  itself 
without  becoming  contaminated  by  their  worldliness 
and  all  it  implies,  and  thus  eventually  losing  that  hold 
on  the  faith  and  reverence  of  mankind  which  alone 
enables  it  to  successfully  do  God's  work  on  earth. 
Churches,  before  now,  have  entered  politics,  often  suc- 
cessfully in  the  worldly  sense,  but  never  with  bene- 
ficial results  in  the  higher  spiritual  sense,  either  to 
themselves  or  to  the  flocks  in  whose  interest  their 
political  excursions  have  ostensibly  been  taken. 

Strictly  speaking,  perhaps,  this  phase  of  the  ques- 
tion does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  this  article.  It 
is  the  moral,  not  the  political  aspect  of  prohibition  with 
which  we  are  here  concerned,  and  morally  it  matters 
perhaps  little  whether  the  Methodist,  or  Baptist,  or 
any  other  sectarian  forces  are  trying  by  devious  means 
to  obtain  control  of  the  governmental  machine  or  not. 
That,  however,  in  prosecuting  their  aims,  whatever 
they  are,  these  potent  forces  are  insidiously  destroying 
the  independent  manhood  of  the  citizen  is  a  question 
which  is  indeed  very  pertinent  to  the  subject  we  are 
discussing  and  of  greater  moment  than  any  other. 

The  end,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  always  justifies  the 
means,  and  it  may  be  that  the  ascendancy  of  what 


68  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

these  forces  please  to  designate  as  "the"  church  in 
political  and  governmental  affairs  is  of  such  paramount 
importance  to  its  future  existence  that,  even  if  it  can 
only  be  accomplished  at  the  cost  of  the  temporary  moral 
retrogression  of  the  citizen,  it  is  well  worth  the  sacrifice. 

In  this  connection  the  closing  words  of  an  article 
entitled,  "The  Anti- Saloon  League  As  a  Political 
Force,"  by  W.  M.  Burke,  Ph.  D.,  Superintendent  of 
the  Anti- Saloon  League  of  California,  in  the  Novem- 
ber issue  of  the  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of 
Political  and  Social  Science,  are  supremely  interesting. 

"Let  any  question  have  the  support  of  the  entire 
evangelical  church,"  this  gentleman  writes,  "then  or- 
ganize this  force  for  action,  put  into  the  field  four 
hundred  and  fifty  keen,  bright,  able  men;  let  them 
draw  their  support  from  the  millions  who  are  in  favor 
of  the  objects  proposed,  AND  YOU  CAN  CREATE 
AND  ORGANIZE  SENTIMENT  ENOUGH  TO 
ACCOMPLISH  ALMOST  ANY  PURPOSE  DE- 
SIRED. That  is  what  is  happening  in  the  political 
arena  to-day  as  against  the  OPEN  SALOON.  It 
is  merely  the  united  church  forces  in  action." 

I  have  given  two  phrases  of  the  above  paragraph  in 
capitals,  because  they  suggest  startling  conclusions. 
Was  it  merely  a  slip  of  the  writer's  pen  that  caused 
him  to  qualify  the  substantive  "saloon"  with  the  ad- 
jective "open,"  or  are  we  to  consider  the  phrase  "open 
saloon"  an  admission  on  his  part  of  the  significant  fact 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  69 

that  only  the  "open"  saloon  and  the  "open"  drinker 
are  the  objects  of  attack  by  the  united  forces  referred 
to?  The  sentence,  "you  can  create  and  organize  senti- 
ment enough  to  accomplish  almost  any  purpose  de- 
sired," surely  gives  food  for  serious  reflection.  "Created 
and  organized  sentiment"  has  an  unwholesome  sound, 
for  would  it  not  seem  that  spontaneity  is  the  essential 
guarantee  of  the  sincerity  of  sentiment?  But  be  that 
as  it  may,  I  am  afraid  that  as  a  general  proposition 
the  words  cited  above  are  true.  Taken  in  conjunction 
with  the  sentence  that  follows  them,  "This  is  what  is 
happening  in  the  political  arena  to-day  as  against  the 
open  saloon,"  they  suggest  the  query:  "What,  under 
these  circumstances,  is  likely  to  happen  in  the  political 
arena  to-morrow  as  against  something  else?" 

The  drink  question  is  assuredly  not  the  only  ques- 
tion in  which  these  churches  are  interested.  Have  they 
entered  politics  only  to  content  themselves  with  using 
their  political  power  for  one  of  the  "purposes  desired," 
to  which  reference  is  made?  If  sentiment  generally 
is  to  be  "created  and  organized"  under  the  gentle  pres- 
sure of  the  political  power  thus  obtained  by  this  or 
the  other  church,  at  what  point  are  the  beneficent  united 
forces  of  the  church  in  action  going  to  stop? 

The  problem  is  interesting.  The  future,  of  course, 
will  bring  the  solution,  but  then,  the  future  has  an 
awkward  habit  of  copying  the  past,  and  past  solutions 


70  Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition. 

of  similar  problems  are  not  the  most  agreeable,  nor 
the  most  moral  things  to  contemplate. 

And,  meanwhile,  what  about  the  undoubted  existence 
of  the  drink  evil  and  its  concomitant,  the  disreputable 
and  law-defying  saloon?  Is  anything  practical  being 
accomplished  towards  the  curing  of  these  social  sores? 
In  a  certain  Southern  State  in  which,  about  a  year 
ago,  a  prohibition  law  was  enacted,  there  are  now  over 
three  thousand  men  paying  the  United  States  govern- 
ment license  to  retail  liquor.  Before  the  prohibition 
law  went  into  effect  the  retail  liquor  license  holders 
in  that  State  numbered  only  fifteen  hundred.  In  place, 
therefore,  of  fifteen  hundred  men,  of  whom  at  least 
some  may  be  presumed  to  have  been  law-abiding  citi- 
zens, we  have  now  three  thousand  criminals  in  conse- 
quence of  the  "success"  of  the  prohibition  movement, 
not  counting  the  tens  of  thousands  of  other  citizens  who 
daily  violate  the  law  by  frequenting  the  places  con- 
ducted by  these  three  thousand  law-breakers.  And  all 
this  is  the  result  of  attempting  to  change  faulty  human 
nature  by  a  mere  stroke  of  the  legislative  pen.  Have 
we  not  had  enough  of  this  pitiable  and  expensive  farce  ? 

Every  true-minded  friend  of  temperance  is  desirous 
of  seeing  the  drink  evil  abated  and  the  lawless  saloon 
abolished.  The  senseless  and  indiscriminate  crusade  of 
the  prohibitionist  is  not  providing  a  remedy  for  the 
former  and  is  multiplying  the  latter,  while  the  more 
sober-minded  reformer,  who  recognizes  the  evil  and 


Moral  Aspects  of  Prohibition.  71 

suggests  the  middle  path  of  correction,  namely,  sane 
regulation  and  intelligent  education,  is  howled  down  by 
the  hysterical  clamor  of  an  irresponsible  multitude  of 
well-meaning  but  totally  ignorant  amateur  humani- 
tarians, who  blindly  follow  a  given  lead,  without 
questioning  whither  it  is  conducting  them. 

Truly,  there  was  never  a  time  when  the  intervention 
of  men  possessed,  not  only  of  the  ability  to  lead  public 
opinion,  but  also  of  the  courage  to  oppose  those  who 
are  misleading  it,  was  more  urgently  needed  than  just 
now.  Such  men,  it  is  true,  are  at  all  times  rare.  But 
it  is  consoling  to  reflect  that  they  have  usually  appeared 
in  history  just  when  the  need  of  them  was  the  greatest. 
Let  us  hope,  at  least,  that  history  will  not  in  this  one 
case  depart  from  its  proverbial  custom  of  repeating 
itself,  and  that  a  Moses  will  arise  in  the  nation  capable 
of  leading  it  out  of  this  wilderness  of  social  strife, 
where  bigotry  on  the  one  hand  and  lawlessness  on  the 
other  are  contending  for  a  victory,  from  the  results  of 
which  humanity  at  large  is  bound  to  suffer,  whichever 
faction  may  achieve  it 


The  Brewer  and  the  Retail  Liquor  Traffic 

Address  Delivered  at  the  Convention  of  the  United 
States  Brewers'  Association  in  Atlantic  City, 
June,  1909. 

We  are  here,  if  I  rightly  understand  the  object  of 
this  gathering,  in  order — to  use  a  vernacular  phrase- 
to  swap  stories  with  one  another,  and  thus  learn  some- 
thing of  each  other's  troubles  and  needs.  In  the 
stories  you  have  heard,  or  are  about  to  hear,  you  will 
doubtless  have  found,  or  will  find,  a  fundamental  simi- 
larity— in  this  respect,  that  our  troubles  all  originate 
from  the  same  source.  The  probability  is  therefore 
great  that  our  needs  are  likewise  all  of  the  same  nature. 
In  other  words,  we  are  all  agreed  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  our  system  that  wants  curing,  and  the  doctors 
are  divided  into  two  factions  on  the  question,  the  one 
faction  claiming  that  the  patient  is  incurable  and  should 
therefore  be  put  out  of  his  agony  for  good  and  all,  the 
other  faction  claiming  that  the  patient  can  be  cured 
by  the  proper  treatment  and  should  therefore  be  called 
upon  to  take  that  treatment.  Being  ourselves  some- 
what closely  related  to  the  patient,  we  naturally  side 
with  that  faction  which  proposes  rather  to  treat  than 


Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic.  73 

to  kill  him,  and  this  brings  us  to  the  question:  Is  he 
going  to  take  the  treatment,  or  is  he  not? 

And  what  is  the  treatment  prescribed?  Broadly 
speaking,  it  may  be  expressed  in  the  term  "sane  regu- 
lation." A  very  simple  prescription  in  itself,  which  we 
have  indeed  held  in  our  hands  for  years  and  years. 
Only  there  has  always  appeared  to  be  the  awkward 
condition  attaching  to  it,  that  we  must  act  as  the 
druggist  and  nurse,  and  both  prepare  the  prescription 
and  apply  the  treatment  ourselves. 

And  here  is  the  crux  of  the  whole  matter,  to  drop 
figurative  language.  Regulation,  or  the  law  that 
provides  it,  is  one  thing,  and  the  application,  or  the 
enforcement  of  that  regulatory  law,  is  quite  another 
thing.  Of  course,  every  citizen,  whatever  his  business 
may  be,  or  to  whatever  walk  of  life  he  may  belong, 
is  expected,  as  a  citizen,  to  aid  in  the  enforcement  of 
law  and  order,  and  to  contribute,  so  far  as  in  him  lies, 
by  his  influence  and  his  example,  his  share  towards 
correcting  such  evil  habits  as  human  society  in  its 
various  forms  and  phases  is,  and  always  will  be,  liable 
to  fall  into.  Only  the  brewer,  it  seems,  is  a  solitary 
exception,  to  this  extent,  that  by  a  kind  of  common 
understanding  among  the  community  at  large,  he  is 
supposed  to  owe  more  onerous  obligations  to  society 
in  this  respect  than  any  other  class  of  citizens;  and 
more  than  this,  he  is  expected  to  be  better  equipped 
than  the  members  of  any  other  trade  or  calling  to 


74  Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic. 

regulate  his  own  and  his  neighbors'  conduct,  and  to  do 
this,  not  only  without  the  aid  of  governmental  power, 
but  actually  in  most  cases  with  such  governmental  or 
administrative  power,  wherever  it  exists,  solidly  arrayed 
against  him. 

It  is  useless  to  inquire  whether  this  expectation  is 
just  or  unjust.  Inasmuch  as  it  presupposes  an  excep- 
tionally high  grade  of  citizenship  in  the  class  of  men 
to  whom  it  applies,  it  might  perhaps  be  accepted  with 
a  certain  measure  of  pride  on  our  part.  But,  whether 
it  be  accepted  with  pride  or  without  pride,  whether  it 
be  accepted  willingly  or  unwillingly,  it  has  to  be 
accepted,  and  the  sooner  the  industry  at  large  realizes 
this  fact  the  better  it  will  be  for  it.  In  short,  the 
brewer,  for  various  reasons — some  good,  some  bad  and 
some  indifferent — is  held  responsible  for  the  conditions 
of  the  retail  liquor  traffic,  and  he  must  show  himself 
equal  to  that  responsibility  or  bear  the  blame  for  the 
-consequences. 

What,  then,  is  actually  wrong  about  the  conditions 
of  the  retail  liquor  traffic?  I  mean,  of  course,  the 
liquor  traffic  outside  of  prohibition  territory,  for  we 
all  know  its  shocking  rottenness  and  its  multiplied  and 
aggravated  evils  there.  If  you  want  an  answer  to  the 
question,  merely  walk  into  the  lobby  of  an  hotel,  or 
into  the  smoking  compartment  of  a  Pullman  car,  or 
into  any  other  public  place  where  men  congregate  and 
discuss  the  topics  of  the  day,  and  after  the  conversation 


Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic.  75 

in  general  has  found  its  way  to  the  prohibition  question, 
as  inevitably  as  it  always  starts  with  that  of  the  coun- 
try's weather  conditions,  you  will  hear  someone  deliver 
himself  of  his  sentiments  regarding  the  lawless  saloon. 
And  there  you  have  your  answer.  The  lawless  saloon! 
It  is  the  cry  from  California  to  Maine — largely  a  man- 
ufactured cry,  we  know.  But  then,  nothing  can  be 
manufactured  without  some  material  to  manufacture  it 
from,  and  he  among  us  who  asserts  that  there  is  no 
material  basis  for  the  cry  regarding  the  lawless  saloon 
is  either  lamentably  blind,  or  criminally  ignorant,  or 
wilfully  untruthful.  The  so-called  dive,  with  all  its 
disreputable  criminal  and  immoral  appendages,  is 
undoubtedly  among  us — not  to  the  extent  the  fanatics 
would  have  the  world  believe,  but  still  it  is  among  us, 
and  more  than  sufficiently  so  to  be  a  grievous  blot  on 
a  trade  which  in  itself  partakes  of  nothing  that  is  not 
honest  and  decent  and  respectable,  and  in  which  many 
good  and  desirable  citizens  are  engaged.  The  dive 
among  the  saloons  is,  unfortunately,  like  the  blatant 
shouter  among  men,  who,  because  he  shouts  so  loud, 
is  easily  mistaken  for  a  multitude. 

Now  ask  your  friends  in  the  Pullman  smoker  or  the 
hotel  lobby  what,  in  their  opinion,  is  the  cause  of  the 
existence  of  the  low  dive,  and  from  what  source  its 
removal  must  come,  and  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the 
laconic  answer  to  both  questions  will  come  back:  "The 
brewer."  If  the  tenth  man  should  happen  to  be  a 


76  Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic. 

whiskey  man,  the  only  difference  in  the  result  will  be 
that  all  ten  will  give  this  answer.  It  is  a  peculiar  fact, 
but  it  is  a  fact,  that  the  whiskey  man,  by  some  myste- 
rious universal  understanding,  seems  to  be  exonerated 
from  all  responsibility  in  the  matter.  If,  for  instance, 
a  man  is  permitted  to  drink  too  much  whiskey  in  a 
saloon,  and  under  the  influence  of  that  whiskey  goes  out 
and  commits  a  crime,  the  blame  is  not  placed  on  the 
whiskey  dealer  who  sold  the  saloonkeeper  the  whiskey, 
but  upon  the  brewer  who  supplies  the  saloonkeeper 
with  beer. 

This,  on  the  mere  face  of  it,  appears  unreasonable, 
and  to  a  large  extent  it  is.  It  originates  from  the  fact 
that  the  brewer  occasionally  aids  the  saloonkeeper 
financially,  or  rents  property  to  him,  and  is  for  that 
reason  looked  upon  as  bearing  a  kind  of  paternal  rela- 
tion to  him,  which  the  community  at  large  regards  as 
a  relation  of  actual  authority,  mistakenly  supposing 
that  that  relationship  exists  between  the  brewer  and 
every  saloonkeeper  whom  he  supplies  with  his  product. 
Thus  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  grocer,  or  any  other 
purveyor  of  necessaries,  may  send  his  wagon  to  a 
saloon  and  deliver  his  goods  there  without  becoming 
accountable  for  the  manner  in  which  the  saloon  is 
conducted.  But  the  brewer  cannot  deliver  his  product 
there  without  by  that  fact  taking  upon  himself  the 
responsibility  for  the  moral  conduct  of  his  customer, 
and  bearing  in  the  public  eye  the  blame  for  any  delin- 
quencies of  which  that  customer  may  be  guilty. 


Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic..  77 

This  onus  of  responsibility  is  a  fact,  and  I  am  merely 
dealing  with  the  fact  itself,  not  with  the  question 
whether  the  onus  is  justly  thrust  upon  the  brewer  or 
not.  An  unsophisticated  mind,  indeed,  or  say  a  visitor 
from  some  other  planet,  who  happened  to  drop  upon 
the  earth  and  proceed  to  investigate  our  peculiar 
terrestrial  affairs,  might  naively  inquire  why  it  is  that 
the  law  does  not  take  care  of  these  matters,  instead  of 
leaving  them  to  the  haphazard  charge  of  a  multitude 
of  purely  commercial  individuals.  The  result  of  such 
inquiry,  I  am  afraid,  would  be  very  startling  to  the 
inquisitive  investigator.  In  the  State  of  Ohio,  for 
instance,  for  which  I  am  speaking,  there  is  at  this  very 
day  legislation  on  the  subject  of  regulating  the  liquor 
traffic  sufficient,  if  actually  made  operative,  to  place 
the  saloon  in  that  State  upon  a  plane  of  purity  the 
contemplation  of  which  would  almost  put  our  Sunday- 
schools  to  the  blush.  And  I  believe  the  same  conditions 
prevail  in  other  States. 

And  there  you  have  the  real  knot  of  the  problem. 
Statutes,  everywhere,  without  number,  but  no  enforce- 
ment. A  surfeit  of  legislation,  but  no  operative  law. 
For  a  law  that  is  not  operative  or  enforced — and  how 
many  of  the  so-called  liquor  laws  are  enforced  by  our 
administrations,  excepting  sporadically  for  political 
purposes? — is  not  only  equivalent  to  no  law,  but  is 
worse  than  no  law,  because  it  breeds  in  the  best  of  men 

a  contempt  for  all  law,  and  because  it  places  a  premium 


78  Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic. 

upon  fraud,  and  blackmail,  and  corruption,  and  all  the 
other  iniquities  to  which  the  retail  liquor  traffic  of  this 
country  is  notoriously  subjected. 

Let  us  be  fair  with  ourselves  as  well  as  severe.  What 
other  body  of  men,  outside  of  those  engaged  in  the 
liquor  traffic,  are  left  without  really  operative  laws  to 
govern  them;  left,  indeed,  practically  to  be  a  law  unto 
themselves?  Take  the  pure  food  laws,  or  any  other 
laws,  for  example.  If  they  were  treated,  by  those 
appointed  to  execute  them,  as  dead  letters,  like  most 
retail  liquor  laws  are,  would  the  man  whom  these  laws 
are  intended  to  govern  be  expected  to  enforce  them 
against  himself,  as  the  brewer  is  apparently  expected 
to  see  to  the  enforcement  of  all  statutes  dealing  with  the 
regulation  and  restriction  of  the  liquor  traffic?  Why, 
let  me  ask,  do  the  retail  liquor  laws,  as  a  general  rule, 
become  dead  letters?  Inquire  for  a  moment  into  the 
history  of  our  so-called  liquor  legislation,  and  in  the 
pages  of  that  history  you  will  find  the  answer  to  the 
question.  Because  many  of  these  unnecessarily  harsh, 
restrictive  laws  are  introduced  in  our  legislatures 
merely  for  the  enrichment  of  the  notorious  milking 
syndicates  with  which  we  permit  our  law-giving  bodies 
to  be  infested,  or,  if  the  milking  process  should  fail, 
for  the  purpose,  when  enacted,  of  providing  tribute 
to  the  dishonest  officials  who  become  charged  with  their 
enforcement.  And  are  we,  and  is  the  saloonkeeper,  to 
be  held  responsible  for  the  consequences  of  this  in- 


Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic.  79 

famy?  If  there  are  corrupt  law-makers — and  heaven 
knows  there  are;  if  there  are  lax  and  depraved  execu- 
tives of  the  law — and  again,  heaven  knows  there  are; 
how  shall  we  expect  perfection  and  purity  from  those 
for  whom  laws  are  made  to  restrain,  not  to  tempt;  to 
uplift,  not  to  degrade ;  to  encourage  men  in  honest  and 
upright  citizenship,  not  to  incite  them  to  immorality 
and  crime? 

I  have  mentioned  the  saloonkeeper;  and  we  know 
that  he  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  entire  question.  But 
let  us  ask  ourselves:  Are  we  justified  in  sitting  in 
judgment  upon  him,  or  is  it  rather  he  who  is  justified 
in  sitting  in  judgment  upon  us?  Regard  him  for  a 
moment.  Recognized  as  the  contributor-in-chief  to- 
wards the  public  needs  of  his  fellow-citizens,  taxed 
almost  beyond  endurance,  persecuted  by  the  self- 
righteous  moralist,  who  himself  rarely  pays  taxes, 
blackmailed  by  the  legislator,  hounded  by  the  corrupt 
politician,  harassed  and  driven  by  his  competitor,  and 
all  too  often  hard-pressed  by  the  brewer  himself,  who 
foolishly  creates  that  very  competitor  without  consider- 
ing that  he  is  thereby  adding  to  these  multitudinous 
drawbacks  under  which  the  retail  liquor  dealer  is 
already  laboring — this  is  the  saloonkeeper.  Is  it  to 
be  wondered  at  if  the  average  man  of  his  class  suc- 
cumbs to  the  temptation  to  eke  out  an  existence,  which 
all  these  factors  make  almost  impossible  to  him,  by 
violating  laws,  from  which  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of 


80  Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic. 

a  hundred  he  knows  he  can  either  buy,  or  otherwise 
procure,  immunity? 

I  have  painted  a  lurid  picture.  But  we  are  here  to 
tell  the  truth  to  each  other,  not  to  throw  the  dust  of 
humbug  and  pretense  in  one  another's  eyes,  and  I 
know  that  the  picture  I  have  painted  is  not  exagger- 
ated in  a  single  particular.  That,  in  spite  of  these 
adverse  conditions,  there  is  still  so  overwhelming  a 
preponderance  of  respectable  and  honorable  men  en- 
gaged in  the  saloon  business  is  simply  a  marvel,  and 
reflects,  to  my  mind,  an  extraordinary  credit  upon  a 
body  of  citizens  who  in  the  aggregate,  let  our  sancti- 
monious moralists  say  what  they  please,  are  far  more 
sinned  against  than  sinning.  For,  just  as  the  brewer 
is  in  a  large  measure  unjustly  held  accountable  for  the 
non-enforcement  of  law  and  order  in  the  retail  liquor 
traffic,  so  is  the  respectable  and  honorable  saloonkeeper 
compelled  to  bear  an  unjust  share  of  the  abuse  and  the 
ignominy  which  are  brought  down  upon  the  trade  in 
general  by  the  comparatively  few  reprobates  and  crim- 
inals who  use  the  saloon  as  a  convenient  blind  behind 
which  to  carry  on  practices  of  a  nefarious  character 
utterly  distinct  from  and  foreign  to  the  saloon  busi- 
ness proper. 

Like  the  cancerous  growth  on  the  otherwise  healthy 
animal  body,  this  element  has  fastened  itself,  without 
any  militant  opposition  from  our  side,  upon  the 
trade,  and  threatens  to  spread  its  putrid  poison  through 


.    Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic.  81 

the  entire  system,  unless  the  cancer  be  promptly  cut 
out.  We  have  seen  it  growing  for  years,  and  have  come 
together  in  conventions  and  passed  high-sounding  reso- 
lutions of  disapproval  and  condemnation,  and  then 
gone  home  again  to  pursue  the  even  tenor  of  our  com- 
mercial way  and  let  matters  take  their  own  course. 
Not  that  we  have  remained  blind  to  the  jeopardy  in 
which  this  condition  of  affairs  has  gradually  been 
placing  us,  nor  spared  pains  and  money  in  an  endeavor 
to  escape  that  jeopardy.  But  in  all  our  past  actions  it 
seems  to  me  we  have  been  like  men  in  a  community 
overwhelmed  by  an  epidemic  of  virulent  disease,  who 
call  in  and  pay  for  expensive  physicians  to  save  the 
victims  of  the  epidemic,  instead  of  going  to  the  root 
of  the  evil  itself  and  cleaning  out  their  own  sewers. 

There  is  only  one  way  for  a  man  to  put  his  house 
in  order.  It  is  to  do  it  himself.  The  common  house 
in  which  we  all  live  is  in  need  of  such  putting  in  order, 
and  no  one  individual  among  us  occupants  of  the 
house  can  accomplish  the  task  single-handed.  It  must 
be  done  collectively,  and  done,  too,  not  by  resolutions 
and  flights  of  oratory,  but  by  hard,  downright,  active, 
methodical  work.  This  is  what  we  are  attempting  in 
Ohio,  namely,  to  disassociate  the  retail  liquor  traffic 
from  the  disreputable  elements  that  have  crept  into 
it,  or,  to  be  more  specific,  to  divorce  the  social  evil  and 
the  gambling  evil  from  the  saloon,  where  they  do  not 
belong,  either  by  nature,  or  by  right,  or  by  any  other 


82  Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic. 

warrant.  We  are  doing  this  with  our  own  resources, 
appealing  for  and  seeking  the  aid  of  the  administration 
wherever  we  can,  but  never  relying  upon  it,  and  only 
too  often  meeting  with  its  secret  or  open  antagonism. 
We  have  established  for  this  purpose  a  Vigilance 
Bureau,  with  a  superintendent  and  a  staff,  for  the 
present,  of  twenty  detectives.  If  these  do  not  suffice, 
we  shall  employ  forty;  if  these  are  not  enough,  then 
sixty.  But  we  are  going  to  succeed  at  whatever  cost. 
The  Vigilance  Bureau  is  placed  under  the  control  of 
one  brewer,  in  whom  his  associates  have  the  confidence 
that  he  will  direct  its  operations  without  fear  or  favor 
of  anyone,  whether  in  the  business  or  out  of  it.  It  has 
been  at  work  for  the  past  eighteen  months  in  every 
section  of  the  State,  and  has  been  instrumental,  in 
sime  fifty  or  sixty  of  our  towns  and  cities,  in  either 
closing  up  undesirable  resorts,  prosecuting  their  pro- 
prietors, or  otherwise  forcing  them  to  comply  with  the 
law.  It  has  accomplished  this,  occasionally  with  the 
assistance  of  the  authorities,  but  far  more  frequently 
without  it.  The  odds  which  it  has  had  to  contend 
against  have  been,  of  course,  great  and  manifold.  But 
these  odds  have  been  lessening  from  day  to  day,  as  the 
sincerity  and  the  seriousness  of  our  purpose  have  be- 
come more  generally  recognized,  and  we  believe  that 
we  have  now  reduced  them  to  an  absolute  minimum; 
for  we  have  recently  succeeded,  against  the  frantic 
opposition  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League,  in  passing  a 


Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic.  83 

law  known  as  the  Dean  Character  Law,  which,  if 
properly  utilized,  will  enable  our  Vigilance  Bureau, 
without  the  aid  of  police  or  other  municipal  authorities, 
to  mete  out  swift  justice  to  any  unscrupulous  dive- 
keeper  who  by  his  objectionable  practices  brings  dis- 
credit upon  the  trade  in  general.  This  law  provides 
that  a  man  shall  forfeit  his  right  to  continue  in  the 
saloon  business  if,  before  paying  his  annual  tax,  he 
cannot  swear,  or  if  he  swears  falsely: 

(1)  That  he  is  an  American  citizen. 

(2)  That  he  has  not  been  convicted  of  a  felony. 

(3)  That  he  has  not  knowingly  sold  to  drunkards 
or  minors. 

(4)  That  he  has  not  knowingly  allowed  gambling 
in,  upon,  or  in  connection  with  his  premises ;  and 

(5)  That  he  has  not  permitted  improper  women  to 
frequent  his  place  of  business,  or  the  premises  connected 
therewith. 

Our  Vigilance  Bureau  is  quietly  gathering  evidence 
in  every  city,  large  and  small,  against  habitual  vio- 
lators of  these  provisions,  who  have  been  warned  of  the 
consequences  of  continuing  such  practices,  and  by 
producing  that  evidence  at  the  proper  time  we  shall 
be  in  a  position  to  convict  the  offenders  of  perjury 
and  put  them  permanently  out  of  business.  In  the 
meantime,  flagrant  cases  are  being  prosecuted  by  the 
Bureau  under  another  clause  of  the  Dean  Law,  which 
imposes  upon  the  Prosecuting  Attorney  of  any  county 


84  Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic. 

the  duty,  upon  demand  of  five  taxpayers,  to  bring 
proceedings  in  the  Common  Pleas  Court  to  have  the 
places  of  such  law-violators  abated  as  nuisances. 

The  task  may  seem  at  first  sight  a  stupendous  one. 
But  when  you  consider  that  a  comparatively  small 
percentage  of  saloonkeepers  are  really  flagrant  law- 
breakers, and  that  even  of  this  percentage  some  are 
only  unwillingly  so,  because  driven  to  these  practices 
by  their  less  scrupulous  competitors,  you  will  agree 
that  the  task  is  after  all  not  so  formidable  as  it  ap- 
pears. I  say  without  hesitation  that  ninety-five  per 
cent  of  the  saloonkeepers  in  our  State,  and  I  believe 
I  may  say  in  the  country,  are  desirous  of  seeing  the 
trade  relieved  from  this  incubus  of  the  disreputable 
element,  and  will  assist  in  weeding  it  out.  It  is  to 
their  interest,  as  much  as  it  is  to  ours,  that  this  be 
done,  but  as  individuals  they  are  as  helpless  as  we  are 
to  contend  against  an  evil  which  is  the  result  of  collec- 
tive negligence  or  delinquency,  and  can  therefore  only 
be  eradicated  by  strong  and  determined  collective 
action. 

Gentlemen,  we  believe,  in  Ohio,  that  the  first  step 
towards  a  rational  solution  of  the  so-called  liquor 
problem  must  be  taken  by  the  brewer  himself,  and 
that,  when  it  has  been  successfully  taken,  as  it  can 
be  successfully  taken,'  the  rest  will  follow  of  itself. 
Do  not  let  us  delude  ourselves  into  the  belief  that  fana- 
ticism is  our  real  enemy.  If  it  were  it  would  be  an 


Brewer  and  Liquor  Traffic.  85 

insignificant  enemy  indeed.  The  condition  we  are 
facing  to-day  has  a  deeper  source,  and  its  remedy  lies, 
not  in  combating  what  is  known  as  the  prohibition 
movement,  but  rather  in  removing  the  cause  which  is 
giving  that  movement  such  widespread  public  support. 
In  other  words,  the  troubles  our  industry  is  suffering 
from  are  both  internal  and  external,  and  the  applica- 
tion of  the  internal  remedy  by  ourselves  is  a  condition 
precedent  to  the  cure  we  are  seeking  externally  from 
others.  If  the  law  will  not  help  us,  let  us  help  the  law. 
If  our  administrative  authorities  will  not  enforce  the 
statutes,  let  us  force  our  administrative  authorities. 
We  can  do  this  if  we  will,  and  the  sooner  we  set  about 
accomplishing  it  the  sooner  our  troubles  will  end. 
Above  all,  gentlemen,  if  you  will  permit  me  to  close 
with  a  terse  colloquial  phrase:  Let  us  in  the  future 
talk  a  little  less  and  do  a  little  more. 


Address   in   Support  of   a  Proposed 

Amendment  to   the  Rose 

County  Option  Law 

Delivered  in  the  Senate  Chamber  of  the  Ohio  General 
Assembly,  February  22,  1910 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee  on 
Municipal  Affairs: 

Speaking  on  behalf  of  the  brewing  industry,  and  the 
trades  allied  to  it — and  I  include  in  these  trades  that 
of  the  much-reviled  and  indiscriminately  abused  saloon- 
keeper— I  shall  confine  myself  exclusively  to  one  funda- 
mental argument  in  urging  upon  you  a  favorable  con- 
sideration of  the  bill  to  amend  the  Rose  County  Option 
law,  which  is  in  your  hands  for  investigation  and  report. 

As  citizens  pure  and  simple,  we  might  fitly  perhaps 
impress  upon  you,  as  others  have  done,  or  will  do, 
the  serious  problem  of  taxation  which  the  Rose  County 
Option  law  in  its  present  form  has  given  rise  to  in 
the  cities  and  larger  municipalities  affected  by  it.  But 
I  am  frank  to  say,  individually,  that  the  taxation  argu- 
ment per  se,  unsupported  by  other  arguments,  is  not 
to  my  mind  sufficient  to  condemn  any  law,  whether 
it  be  a  liquor  option  law,  or  any  other  kind  of  legislative 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  87 

measure.  A  statute  that  is  good,  that  is  efficient,  that 
has  the  support  and  the  respect  and  the  co-operation 
of  the  people  whom  it  affects,  should  not  be  repealed 
or  amended,  or  modified,  merely  because  the  good  it 
does  costs  the  taxpayers  more  money.  If  such  a  statute 
contributes  to  the  happiness,  if  it  furthers  the  pros- 
perity, and  if  it  tends  towards  the  moral  uplift  of  these 
people,  they  should  be  proud  and  glad  to  dig  down  a 
little  deeper  into  their  pockets  and  contribute  their 
extra  mite  to  so  worthy  an  object.  The  force  of  the 
taxation  argument,  therefore,  like  that  of  a  good  many 
other  arguments  advanced  by  the  opponents  of  the 
Rose  law,  depends  primarily  upon  the  question:  Is 
the  law  an  efficient  one  and  a  just  one,  and  does  it 
command  the  respect  and  the  co-operation  of  the 
people  whom  it  affects?  As  citizens,  the  brewer,  the 
saloonkeeper,  and  those  belonging  to  the  allied  trades 
and  industries  are  as  much  interested  in  this  question 
as  anyone  else.  I  hope  to  prove  to  you,  indeed,  that, 
as  men  of  business,  they  are  far  more  vitally  concerned 
in  this  question  than  any  other  class  of  citizens  can  be. 
The  problem,  whether  the  country  should  be  per- 
mitted to  dictate  to  the  city,  or  whether  this  political 
unit  or  that  political  unit  is  the  fair  and  expedient  one 
in  determining  such  matters  as  are  involved  in  the 
Rose  County  Option  law,  is  perhaps  even  less  in  my 
province  to  discuss  than  the  problem  of  taxation.  But 
I  am  obliged  to  preface  my  argument  with  at  least  one 


88  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

incontrovertible  assertion,  which  to  some  extent  bears 
upon  that  problem.  This  assertion  is  that,  under  the 
Rose  County  Option  law,  the  urban  communities  have 
been  forced  against  their  will  to  accept  the  conditions 
imposed  upon  them  by  those  who  live  outside  of  these 
communities,  by  men  who  have  no  concern  in  their 
affairs,  no  share  in  their  responsibilities,  and  who  bear 
no  part  whatsoever  in  their  administrative  burdens  and 
duties. 

That  this  is  true,  practically  every  election  held  under 
the  Rose  law  has  proved  ad  nauseam.  The  cities,  by 
overwhelming  votes,  have  emphatically  recorded  their 
disapproval  of  the  law,  and,  by  the  conditions  which 
they  have  permitted  to  prevail  in  their  midst  since  these 
elections,  they  have  just  as  emphatically  recorded  their 
contempt  and  evinced  their  disregard  of  the  law.  The 
saloon,  however  faulty  we  may  concede  it  to  be,  has 
been  followed  everywhere  by  the  dive  and  the  secret 
joint,  uncontrolled  and  uncontrollable  by  the  powers 
of  law  and  order.  The  bootlegger  has  succeeded  the 
respectable  merchant;  the  ubiquitous  club  has  inherited 
the  premises  of  the  tax-yielding  retailer,  and  chaos 
reigns  supreme.  In  short,  the  same  men  who  drank 
before  the  Rose  County  Option  law  became  effective, 
drink  now,  only  what  they  drink  is  of  a  little  more 
ardent  and  of  a  rankly  inferior  character,  and  the 
conditions  under  which  they  drink  it  are  vastly  more 
dangerous  and  vastly  more  detrimental  than  they  were 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  89 

before.  The  only  apparent  result  of  the  operation  of 
the  Rose  County  Option  law  in  the  cities — and  appar- 
ent merely  because  it  is  visible  to  the  naked  eye — is 
the  removal  of  the  sign  "saloon,"  so  obnoxious  to  some 
well-meaning  people,  from  over  the  doors  of  the  drink- 
ing places  formerly  frequented  by  that  majority  of  the 
citizens  of  the  community  who  have  so  unmistakably 
made  known  their  wish — and  let  me  add,  frankly, 
their  intention — to  continue  to  exercise  their  privilege 
to  congregate  in  public  or  semi-public  places  and  seek 
that  particular  form  of  social  recreation  which  has  been 
theirs  from  time  immemorial,  and  which  a  certain  lordly 
and  aggressive  section  of  their  fellow-citizens,  first  by 
persuasion,  then  by  strategem,  and  lastly  by  bold  and 
open  coercion,  has  aimed  to  deny  them. 

Here,  then,  you  have  the  true  cause  of  the  deplorable 
failure  of  the  Rose  County  Option  law,  and  of  all  other 
similar  laws,  presented  to  you  in  a  nutshell.  For,  gen- 
tlemen, no  statute  framed  by  human  hand  has  ever 
succeeded,  or  will  ever  succeed,  in  changing  the  trend 
of  human  desires,  of  human  appetites,  or  of  human 
convictions.  The  belief  that  law,  rather  than  example 
and  education,  can  accomplish  this  is  the  one  great  and 
extraordinary  fallacy  that  underlies  this  whole  so- 
called  reform  movement,  which  is  carried  on  under 
the  interchangeable  titles  of  Anti- Saloon  agitation  and 
Prohibition.  It  is  only  too  notorious  that  all  these 
efforts  of  Prohibition  in  its  various  guises  and  dis- 


90  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

guises  have  succeeded  merely  in  destroying  the  control 
and  the  regulation  of  the  liquor  traffic,  not  in  destroy- 
ing that  traffic  itself.  The  evils  which  have  been  per- 
mitted to  creep  into  the  traffic,  and  which  we  all  want 
to  see  removed,  have  not  only  remained  untouched,  but 
that  which  was  not  evil  before  has  been  made  evil  b\ 
these  ill-advised  and  futile  attempts  to  fetter  the  free 
will  of  the  individual,  or,  rather  let  me  say,  to  put 
chains  on  the  many  who  are  strong  in  order  to  protect 
the  few  who  are  weak.  Instead  of  curing  the  diseased 
limb  on  the  healthy  body,  they  have  resulted  in  the 
entire  body  becoming  inoculated  with  the  disease  of 
the  limb.  Instead  of  forcing  the  disreputable  dive- 
keeper  out  of  politics — a  consummation  devoutly  to 
be  wished — they  are  driving  the  respectable  saloon- 
keeper with  whips  and  scourges  into  politics.  The 
remedy,  in  other  words,  has  proved  worse  than  the 
disease.  Whilst  the  rational  course  of  legislation  would 
be  to  protect  the  law-abiding  saloonkeeper  and  en- 
courage him  in  his  obedience  to  the  law,  every  single 
measure  which  has  been  forced  on  the  public  by  the 
machinations  of  the  Anti- Saloon  League  has  without 
exception  had  the  effect  of  delivering  the  business  of 
the  legitimate  saloonkeeper,  built  up  by  honest  and 
steady  effort,  into  the  hands  of  the  tough  and  the 
criminal  class.  Because  a  comparatively  small  number 
of  wrong-doers  has  been  allowed  to  invade  the  saloon 
trade  and  use  it  as  a  blind  for  disreputable  practices 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  91 

that  are  utterly  foreign  to  it,  therefore  all  saloon- 
keepers are  being  forced,  indiscriminately,  either  to 
face  starvation,  or  become  criminals  and  malefactors 
themselves. 

It  is  this  unhappy  consequence  of  the  Rose  law  that 
affects  those  engaged  in  the  liquor  traffic  in  one  form 
or  another  far  more  deeply  than  it  affects  even  the 
ordinary  citizen,  for  no  man  can  be  more  keenly  alive 
to  the  dangers  attendant  upon  the  selling  of  liquor  by 
lawless  and  unscrupulous  men  than  the  manufacturer 
and  the  legitimate  retailer  of  liquor  himself.  And 
what  are  they  but  human,  like  all  other  men  of  business  ? 
And  if  they  are  confronted  with  the  alternative  of 
either  losing  all  they  have,  or  selling  to  the  millions 
who  demand  their  goods  through  illicit  channels,  on 
which  of  these  two  horns  of  the  dilemma  do  you  sup- 
pose they  will  choose  to  be  impaled? 

I  am  not  here  to  make  pretense  of  the  existence  of 
virtues  in  those  wnom  I  represent,  which  do  not  exist, 
and  are  not  expected  to  exist,  in  any  other  class  of 
men,  whether  they  be  merchants,  officials,  professional 
men,  or — let  me  add  with  all  due  deference — even 
ministers  of  the  gospel.  No  man  can  so  shape  his 
conduct  towards  his  fellow-man  as  our  social  order  of 
things  demands  that  he  should  without  a  law  to  govern 
that  conduct,  for  without  law  all  men,  even  the  most 
virtuous  of  our  reformers,  would,  from  their  very 
nature,  be  savages.  Now,  I  say  to  you  in  all  solemnity, 


92  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

and  I  speak  with  considerable  practical  experience  of 
the  subject— that  the  root  of  all  the  evil  in  the  retail 
liquor  traffic  lies  in  the  fact  that  that  traffic  has  for 
years  been  under  the  necessity  of  being  conducted  with- 
out that  government  of  operative  law  which  is  essential 
to  the  good  and  proper  conduct  of  all  men,  and  of  all 
affairs.  True,  we  have  liquor  legislation  galore.  There 
were  laws  on  the  statute  books  of  our  State  prior  to 
the  passage  of  the  Rose  County  Option  bill  sufficient 
to  make  every  foot  of  ground  in  Ohio  dry,  if  it  had 
been  the  will  of  the  people  that  it  become  dry.  Why, 
then,  were  these  laws  not  operative?  Why  were  they 
not  obeyed?  Was  it  simply  because  the  liquor  man 
chose  to  disobey  and  defy  the  law?  If  so,  let  me  ask 
you,  why  are  not  our  jails  full  of  these  bold  disre- 
garders  of  the  law? 

Gentlemen — again  I  speak,  not  in  a  derogatory 
spirit,  but  merely  to  point  and  emphasize  my  argu- 
ment— there  are  at  this  moment  more  ministers  of  the 
gospel  than  there  are  saloonkeepers  confined  in  the 
state  penitentiary  of  Ohio.  Do  these  proportions  im- 
ply— as  they  would  seem  to  imply — that  there  are 
more  lawless  men  among  the  ministers  of  the  State 
than  there  are  lawless  saloonkeepers?  Of  course  it 
does  not.  It  implies  simply,  what  I  am  endeavoring 
to  impress  upon  you,  that  the  law  regulating  the 
conduct  of  saloonkeepers  is  treated  by  the  executives 
of  the  law  largely  as  a  dead  letter,  whilst  other  laws 
are  not. 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  93 

It  is  this  which  the  respectable  members  of  a  trade, 
that  is  recognized  as  a  legitimate  trade  by  every  civil- 
ized nation  in  the  world,  resent,  and  which  they  have 
a  good  right  to  resent.  It  is  this  which  caused  the 
combined  liquor  interests  of  the  State  to  come  before 
you  at  the  last  session  of  the  legislature  and  ask  you 
to  pass  a  measure,  of  their  own  devising,  which  would 
give  into  the  hands  of  the  authorities  throughout  the 
State  a  means  of  effectually  driving  out  the  disrep- 
utable elements,  which,  mainly  through  the  laxity  of 
those  authorities,  had  in  the  past  been  permitted  to 
fasten  themselves  upon  a  trade  which  in  itself  partakes 
of  nothing  that  is  not  honest,  and  clean,  and  commend- 
able. Every  obstacle  which  cunning  could  devise  was 
placed  in  the  way  of  the  passage  of  that  measure, 
known  to-day  as  the  Dean  Regulation  law,  by  those 
who  are  opposed  to  the  liquor  traffic,  not  because  un- 
desirable elements  have  entered  it,  but  because  it  caters 
to  human  desires  and  to  human  pleasures  of  which  they 
see  fit  to  disapprove,  but  of  which  the  majority  of  men 
do  not  disapprove. 

Gentlemen,  those  who  were  responsible  for  the  intro- 
duction and  the  passage  of  the  Dean  Regulation  law 
knew  only  too  well  that,  if  left  to  itself,  it  would 
become  a  dead  letter — as  dead  and  inoperative  as 
most  other  liquor  laws  passed  by  the  legislatures  of 
the  nation.  They  knew  that  the  Anti- Saloon  League 
itself,  whose  leaders  used  every  means  in  their  power 


94  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

to  prevent  this  meaure  from  being  enacted,  would 
endeavor  to  nullify  its  effect,  if  and  when  it  became 
a  law.  And  the  result  has  fully  borne  out  their  expec- 
tations. No  effort  whatsoever,  not  even  the  shadow 
of  a  pretense,  has  been  made  independently  by  any 
administration  charged  with  the  proper  execution  of 
the  laws  to  put  the  provisions  of  this  measure  into 
effect,  and  the  legal  counsel  of  the  Anti- Saloon  League, 
and  the  accredited  mouthpiece  of  that  League,  has 
gone  out  of  his  way  in  a  public  interview  to  point  out, 
to  the  world  in  general  and  to  the  dive-keeper  in 
particular,  that  the  Dean  law — bear  in  mind,  gentle- 
men, a  law  devised  for  the  specific  purpose  of  divorcing 
the  saloon  from  its  objectionable  elements — is,  in  his 
opinion,  unconstitutional,  and  therefore  unworthy  of 
observance. 

What  an  object  lesson  to  the  impartial  onlooker  of 
this  tragic  farce,  which  is  being  performed,  at  the 
expense  of  the  unsophisticated  citizen,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  pseudo-religious,  pseudo-reformatory, 
but  in  truth  purely  political  and  eminently  commercial 
organization  known  to  the  country  at  large  as  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League. 

This  is  one  picture,  gentlemen.  Now  permit  me  to 
present  to  you  another. 

Two  years  ago,  after  years  of  discussion  and  delib- 
eration regarding  the  best  means  of  meeting  a  condi- 
tion of  affairs  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  any 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  95 

industry  on  earth,  the  brewers  of  Ohio  established  a 
Vigilance  Bureau,  with  the  view  of  doing  that  which  I 
claim  no  other  body  of  commercial  men  has  ever  been 
called  upon  to  do,  viz:  to  police  its  own  industry.  The 
first  efforts  of  this  bureau  were  ridiculed  and  derided, 
not  only,  of  course,  by  the  Anti- Saloon  League,  but 
even  by  those  who  for  years  had  been  laying  the  blame 
for  the  non-enforcement  of  law  and  order  in  the  retail 
liquor  traffic  upon  the  brewer  and  calling  upon  him, 
with  his  limited  means  and  his  untrained  powers,  to 
accomplish  that  which  the  trained  forces  and  all  the 
powers  of  the  government  had  failed  to  accomplish. 
We  found  our  way  blocked  and  our  purposes  thwarted 
at  every  step  by  the  very  executives  of  the  law,  the 
burden  of  whose  neglected  duties  we  were  assuming, 
and  whose  task  we  were  assisting  them  to  perform,  and 
only  in  one  quarter  did  we  find  an  enthusiastic  welcome 
extended  to  us.  That  quarter,  gentlemen,  was  the 
saloon  trade  itself,  and  I  am  frank  to  admit  that, 
without  the  encouragement  vouchsafed  to  us  and 
without  the  strong  and  effective  co-operation  afforded 
to  us  in  that  quarter,  we  should  not  be  in  the  position 
to-day  of  proving  to  you  that  the  work  we  have  under- 
taken has  been  increasingly  effective  from  the  very 
day  it  was  started. 

It  would  be  manifestly  impossible  for  me,  in  the  lim- 
ited time  placed  at  my  disposal,  to  lay  before  you 
even  an  appreciable  fraction  of  the  total  details  of 


96  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

this  work,  which  has  been  carried  on  quietly  and  with- 
out effort  to  obtain  publicity  or  public  commendation. 
But  I  would  ask  your  indulgence  while  I  submit  to 
you  certain  general  results  of  that  work,  which  must 
convince  any  rational  man  that  in  the  simple  enforce- 
ment of  the  existing  laws  regulating  the  conduct  of 
the  retail  liquor  traffic  lies  the  true  solution  of  the 
much-vexed  liquor  question,  and  not  in  the  placing 
of  that  traffic,  the  existence  of  which  the  public  de- 
mands and  will  continue  to  demand,  outside  the  pale 
of  the  law,  as  our  friends  on  the  other  side  of  the 
house  propose  doing. 

Our  Vigilance  Bureau,  with  its  superintendent  and 
staff  of  twenty-five  trained  detectives,  has  operated 
during  the  year  in  nearly  fifty  cities  of  the  State. 
In  every  instance  these  men  were  first  placed  at  the 
disposal  of  the  local  authorities,  and  when,  as  was 
only  too  often  the  case,  those  authorities,  for  reasons 
best  known  to  themselves,  refused  to  accept  their  co- 
operation, the  work  of  investigating  saloon  conditions, 
gathering  evidence  of  violations  of  the  law,  and  prose- 
cuting the  violators,  was  carried  on  by  us  independently 
and  in  the  teeth  of  the  opposition  either  secretly  or 
openly  manifested  by  the  local  administration.  Where 
such  opposition  was  not  manifested,  or  where  it  was 
ultimately  overcome  by  argument  or  persuasion  on  our 
part,  our  task  proved  comparatively  easy.  In  Cleve- 
land, in  Dayton,  in  Chillicothe,  in  Canton,  in  Youngs- 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  97 

town,  in  Sidney,  in  Hamilton,  in  Bucyrus,  and  now  in 
Columbus,  as  well  as  in  several  other  centers,  we  met 
finally  with  the  loyal  and  effective  support  and  encour- 
agement of  the  administrative  officials,  and  in  every  one 
of  these  cases  our  success  has  been  of  a  most  gratifying 
nature,  proving  that  the  law  can  be  enforced,  providing 
there  is  an  inclination,  not  to  speak  of  a  will,  to  enforce 
it  on  the  part  of  those  charged  with  its  execution. 

I  do  not  ask  you  to  accept  my  mere  statement  of 
this  fact,  though  I  have  detailed  and  exhaustive  proof 
of  it  in  the  voluminous  records  of  the  operations  of 
our  Bureau.  The  testimony  of  the  authorities  them- 
selves will  be  more  satisfactory  to  you,  and  I  venture 
to  believe  that  you  will  accept  that  testimony  as  final 
and  conclusive. 

Here  Mr.  Andreae  read  a  number  of  letters  from 
Mayors,  Sheriffs,  Prosecuting  Attorneys  and  other 
officials  in  "wet"  and  "dry"  counties,  commending  the 
work  of  the  Ohio  Brewers'  Vigilance  Bureau. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  more  salient  instances,  gen- 
tlemen, of  what  has  been  accomplished  under  the  Dean 
Regulation  Law,  and  it  has  been  accomplished  in  most 
cases  under  the  severest  of  handicaps.  For,  bear  in 
mind  that  the  brewers  are  not  invested  with  police 
powers,  either  towards  transgressors  in  their  own  ranks, 
or  towards  the  public  at  large;  nor  are  they  trained 
and  experienced  in  performing  executive  work  of  this 
nature,  which  is  properly  incumbent  upon  officials  who 


98  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

are  versed  in  administrative  affairs  and  practiced  in  the 
application  and  proper  enforcement  of  the  laws  of  the 
State.  We  might  in  all  fairness  expect  to  be  relieved 
in  the  future  of  this  self-imposed  task.  But,  rather 
than  risk  the  consequences  of  possible  future  official 
neglect  in  carrying  out  the  provisions  of  the  Dean 
law,  we  are  willing  to  continue  bearing  this  heavy 
and  difficult  and  expensive  burden,  conscious  as  we 
are  that  the  example  we  are  giving  will  ultimately 
lead  to  an  awakening  of  the  administrative  powers 
throughout  the  State  to  the  necessity  of  exercising 
that  vigilance  in  the  performance  of  their  executive 
duties,  to  the  absence  of  which  alone  the  much  com- 
plained of  conditions  existing  in  the  retail  liquor  traffic 
are  to  be  traced. 

Gentlemen,  I  need  not  tell  men  of  your  intelligence 
and  experience  that  you  cannot  extend  immunity  from 
the  law  to  a  few  favored  individual  members  of  a 
trade  or  industry  without  forcing  every  member  of 
that  trade  or  industry  to  demand  the  same  immunity, 
to  take  it  unasked.  Men  are  human,  and  self-preser- 
vation is  the  first  law  of  nature.  There  is  scarcely  a 
city  in  this  State,  where  the  powers  that  be  do  not,  for 
this  or  the  other  reason,  confer  privileges,  specifically 
forbidden  by  the  law,  on  a  few  retail  liquor  dealers,  with 
the  inevitable  consequence  that  their  many  competitors, 
who  are  only  too  desirous  of  obeying  the  law  and  con- 
ducting a  decent,  honorable  business,  are  compelled, 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  99 

either  to  arrogate  to  themselves  the  same  privileges,  or 
see  their  business  swallowed  up  by  their  favored 
neighbor.  Unfortunately,  it  is  always  the  few  who 
set  the  pace  for  the  many,  and  in  acting  with  undue, 
and,  let  me  add,  criminal  indulgence  towards  the 
few  these  authorities  have  so  tied  their  hands  toward  the 
many  that  complete  disregard  of  law  and  order  has 
become  the  inevitable  result. 

Now  let  me  ask  you  this  simple  question:  Are  these 
same  administrations,  which  have  notoriously  for- 
feited the  power  to  execute  the  law  and  compel  obedi- 
ence to  it  in  wet  territories,  where  the  means  of  regula- 
tion and  control  are  provided — are  these  administra- 
tions, I  say,  better  equipped  and  better  constituted  to 
execute  and  compel  obedience  to  the  law  in  so-called 
dry  districts,  where,  firstly,  the  majority  of  the  citizens, 
who  elect  these  administrations,  resent  that  law,  and 
where,  secondly,  the  means  of  regulation  and  control 
are  admittedly  lacking?  Even  if  the  overwhelming 
evidence  to  the  contrary  had  not  been  forthcoming  from 
every  city  which  has  been  forced  into  the  dry  column 
against  the  will  of  large  majorities  of  its  citizens,  the 
answer  to  the  question  is  so  patently  negative  that  it 
can  admit  of  no  counter-argument  at  all. 

Our  friends  on  the  other  side  of  the  house  argue  that 
the  taxes  derived  from  the  liquor  traffic  are  used  for 
defraying  the  expense  of  controlling  and  regulating 
that  traffic,  and  that,  if  the  traffic  were  abolished,  the 


100  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

need  of  these  taxes  must  cease.  Even  if  the  first  part 
of  this  argument  were  more  than  partially  true,  which 
it  is  not,  the  inherent  and  dangerous  fallacy  of  the 
latter  part  of  the  argument  remains  unaltered,  viz: 
that  the  liquor  traffic  is,  or  ever  will  be,  abolished  in 
districts  where  the  majority,  or  even  an  appreciably 
large  minority,  of  the  citizens  demand  it.  No  one 
realizes  this  fallacy  more  fully  than  the  manufacturer 
of  liquor  himself,  and  while  he  is  not  interested  in 
the  question  of  higher  or  lower  taxation,  or  in  the 
efficiency  or  non-efficiency  of  the  administration  of  the 
various  cities  of  the  State,  he  is  interested  in  seeing 
a  stigma,  for  which  he  is  not  responsible,  removed  from 
the  traffic  he  is  engaged  in;  he  is  interested  in  prevent- 
ing his  business,  which  he  has  established  and  carried 
on  under  the  protection  and  under  the  encouragement 
of  the  law,  from  being  arbitrarily  made  criminal,  or 
handed  over  to  criminals  to  pollute  and  disgrace;  he  is 
interested  in  seeing  that  the  same  active  control  of  the 
law  shall  be  extended  to  each  and  every  one  who  en- 
gages in  his  trade,  as  it  is  extended  to  the  members  of 
every  other  trade,  business  or  calling. 

It  is  upon  these  grounds,  and  upon  these  alone,  that 
I  stand  before  you  and  appeal  to  you  for  a  favorable 
consideration  of  a  measure  which  is  designed  to  restore 
to  the  cities  of  this  State  the  most  natural  of  rights, 
which  the  county  option  law  has  taken  from  them, 
namely,  the  right  to  have  the  determining  voice  in 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  101 

affairs  which  are  exclusively  their  own,  and  for  the 
proper  management  of  which  they  alone  must  bear  the 
responsibility.  The  proposed  Amendment  to  the  Rose 
County  Option  law  contains  nothing  that  is  not  abso- 
lutely fair  and  equitable.  It  leaves  the  people  of  the 
country  all  the  rights  they  claim,  even  the  questionable 
right  of  compelling  the  cities  to  hold  an  election  on  the 
"wet"  and  "dry"  question  without  any  desire  for  such 
election  being  manifested  on  their  part;  and  it  gives 
to  the  cities  what  they  are  justly  demanding,  namely, 
the  privilege  to  arrange  their  own  affairs  according  to 
the  wishes  and  the  judgment  of  the  majority  of  their 
citizens.  Can  you  conceive  of  any  measure  better 
calculated  to  satisfy  all  parties  to  a  controversy,  in 
which  the  contending  interests  are  as  evenly  divided 
as  they  are  in  this  one? 

I  will  go  even  further  and  say  that  this  amendment 
will  be  as  welcome  to,  and  receive  as  much  applause 
from,  the  people  in  the  country  districts  as  it  undoubt- 
edly will  from  the  people  of  the  cities.  For,  do  not 
imagine,  gentlemen,  because  majorities  in  largely  rural 
counties  have  exercised  the  tyrannical  power  conferred 
upon  them  by  the  Rose  County  Option  law  to  compel 
cities  to  accept  conditions  of  which  they  disapprove, 
and  which  they  cannot  control,  that  it  was  for  the 
purpose  of  exercising  that  unenviable  privilege  that 
they  cast  their  votes  as  they  did. 

It  may  be  admitted  that  the  country  folk  have  rea- 


102  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

sons  for  eliminating  the  saloon  from  their  midst  which 
the  cities  do  not  have.  But  it  is  that  elimination,  and 
that  alone,  in  which  they  are  interested.  That  their 
own  right  of  franchise  was  being  used  by  the  more 
shrewd  than  honest  framers  of  the  Rose  County  Option 
law  to  destroy  the  sacred  right  of  the  franchise  in 
communities  in  which  they  have  no  concern  or  interest, 
was  probably  not  realized  by  many  of  those  who  by 
their  votes  in  the  recent  county  elections  contributed 
to  that  destruction.  If  they  had  realized  it,  I  believe 
that  the  Rose  law  would  have  received  the  same  con- 
demnation in  the  country  districts  as  it  has  received  in 
the  cities.  It  is,  in  fact,  no  more  in  the  nature  of  our 
race,  whether  we  live  in  cities  or  in  country  places,  to 
countenance  force  and  coercion  on  the  part  of  one 
section  of  the  people  towards  the  other  than  it  is  in  its 
nature  to  applaud  the  exercise  of  a  despot's  power  over 
the  subjects  whom  he  rules.  The  sense  of  justice  is, 
I  believe,  inherent  in  the  human  being  the  world  over, 
and  no  one  who  has  intelligently  followed  the  course 
of  events  in  the  past  year  can  be  blind  to  the  fact  that 
that  sense  of  justice  has  been  gradually  awakening 
throughout  the  State  and  bringing  about  a  realization 
in  the  minds  of  the  people  at  large  of  the  true  rights 
in  this  case. 

Political  majorities,  gentlemen,  are  at  best  transient 
quantities,  and  the  majority  of  to-day  may  prove  to 
be  the  minority  of  to-morrow.  Like  the  tyrants  of 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  103 

old,  they  are  liable  to  be  swept  into  oblivion  by  the 
uprising  common  sense  of  the  whole  people,  who  may 
sometimes  temporarily  applaud  what  they  don't  under- 
stand to  be  wrong,  but  only  to  rise  up  presently  and 
visit  their  just  wrath  upon  those  who  were  the  cause 
of  their  misunderstanding.  Only  one  thing  endures, 
and  always  will  endure,  throughout  all  time,  and  that 
is  right.  That  the  Rose  law,  as  it  now  stands,  is  inher- 
ently wrong;  that  it  negatives  the  inalienable  privi- 
leges granted  to  men  throughout  the  civilized  world; 
that  it  deals  unjustly  with  vested  property  and  inter- 
ests; that  it  arrays  the  people  of  the  cities  against  the 
people  of  the  country;  that  it  makes  enmity  between 
friends,  and  divides  the  very  family  itself;  and  that 
it  is  destructive  of  morals  and  deplorably  subversive 
of  order  and  respect  of  the  law  generally;  these  are 
facts,  of  which  down  in  their  hearts  nine  men  out  of 
every  ten  who  have  given  more  than  passing  thought 
and  study  to  the  question  are  deeply  conscious. 

It  is  largely  in  your  hands  to  remedy  this  wrong, 
thank  you  for  the  privilege  you  have  granted  me  of 
That  it  will  and  must  be  remedied  some  day,  of  this 
we  have  no  doubt,  for  nothing  that  is  wrong  can  prevail 
permanently.  We  ask  you  to  remedy  it  now,  lest  the 
consequences  of  the  wrong  grow  to  still  greater  pro- 
portions and  assume  dimensions  with  which  the  ordi- 
nary legislative  powers  may  find  it  difficult  to  cope. 

Let  me,   however,   say  this   in  conclusion,   while   I 


104  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

addressing  you.  Whether  you  give  ear  to  our  appeal 
or  not,  of  one  thing  rest  assured.  We  stand  ready, 
and  shall  continue,  to  prosecute  the  work  we  have 
begun  with  such  auspicious  results,  and  to  give  further 
proof,  if  it  should  be  needed,  that  it  is  in  reasonable 
laws,  strictly  enforced,  and  not  in  coercive  and  irra- 
tional legislation,  hated  of  the  people  and  violated  in 
its  very  inception,  that  the  long  desired  solution  of  the 
liquor  question  must  and  will  be  found. 


Truth   from    a   Brewer's  Standpoint 


From  Leslie's  Weekly,  June  2,  1910 

I  suppose  the  literature  on  the  liquor  question,  if 
collected  and  stored,  would  tax  the  capacity  of  a  fair- 
sized  museum.  Whether  all  that  has  been  written  on 
the  subject  has  brought  the  world  one  step  nearer  to  a 
solution  of  the  problem  involved,  it  would  be  hard  to 
say.  The  two  contending  factions,  popularly  known 
as  the  "wets"  and  the  "drys,"  are  still  fighting,  each 
with  varying  success,  over  the  shoulders  of  the  people 
at  large. 

In  Ohio  we  have  a  county  local-option  law,  which 
has  been  operative  for  nearly  two  years  in  upward  of 
sixty  counties  of  the  State.  In  these  counties,  in  which 
the  sale  of  liquor  has  been  prohibited  by  law,  the  fol- 
lowing facts,  taken  in  each  case  from  the  official  records 
extending  over  the  past  three  years,  have  been  ascer- 
tained : 

1.  The  rate  of  taxation  has  largely  increased  since  the  prohi- 
bition law  became  effective.  (This,  of  course,  was  expected  by  the 
wet  faction.)  2.  The  arrests  for  drunkenness  have  materially 
diminished  in  number.  (This  was  predicted  by  the  dry  faction.) 
3.  The  number  of  indictments  for  felony  and  misdemeanor  shows 
a  notable  increase.  (This  will  probably  come  as  a  surprise  to  both 
the  wet  and  dry  factions.) 


106  A  Brewer  s  Standpoint. 

Of  course  the  advocates  of  prohibition  will  take 
jubilant  comfort  in  the  decline  of  the  number  of 
arrests  for  drunkenness.  Whether  this  decline,  how- 
ever, means  that  less  people  drink  to  excess  than  before 
is  an  open  and  perhaps  a  debatable  question.  But, 
assuming  the  fact  to  be  established,  wouldn't  the 
accompanying  fact  that  the  number  of  felonies  and 
misdemeanors  has  increased  seem  to  prove  that  sober 
people  are  more  liable  to  commit  crimes  than  drunken 
people?  Such  a  conclusion  would  be  manifestly  ab- 
surd, yet  the  statistics  disclosed  certainly  make  sad 
havoc  of  the  prohibitionist's  stock  argument  that  drink 
is  the  cause  of  ninety  per  cent  of  all  the  crimes  com- 
mitted. Add  to  the  above-cited  three  facts  the  indis- 
putable fourth  fact  that  enormous  quantities  of  worse 
liquors  are  sold  in  these  "dry"  counties  than  were  sold 
in  them  before  they  became  "dry,"  and  you  have  a 
puzzle  compared  with  which  the  most  intricate  problem 
presented  in  higher  algebra  is  mere  child's  play. 

Nor  do  the  perplexities  end  here.  To  make  con- 
fusion worse  confounded,  most  of  those  who  are  mili- 
tantly  concerned  in  this  much  vexed  question  seem  to 
be  rooted  in  a  soil  of  the  rankest  unreason.  The  ex- 
treme "wets"  are  as  unreasonable  as  the  extreme 
"drys,"  and  the  laws,  in  consequence,  are  as  unreason- 
able as  both,  adding  to  the  public  bewilderment  by 
their  contradictoriness  and  general  incoherency.  They 
recognize  and  forbid  the  liquor  traffic  almost  in  one 


A  Brewer  s  Standpoint.  107 

and  the  same  breath,  they  tax  it  and  persecute  it  simul- 
taneously, and  those  who  are  charged  with  executing 
the  laws  complete  the  universal  confusion  by  enforcing 
them  one  day  and  utterly  ignoring  them  the  next. 

We  are  so  intent  upon  either  attacking  or  defending 
the  abstract  question  of  the  right  of  the  liquor  traffic 
to  exist  that  the  question  of  purging  that  traffic,  while 
it  does  exist,  of  its  undesirable  features  seems  to  have 
passed  out  of  our  minds  altogether.  In  consequence, 
the  more  furious  the  battle  rages  around  these  disrep- 
utable elements,  the  more  they  prosper,  the  more  they 
multiply,  and  the  more  bold  they  grow.  If,  for  in- 
stance, a  district  that  was  "wet"  is  voted  "dry,"  they 
flock  to  it  like  vultures,  knowing  that  they  can  defy  the 
law  more  easily  under  "dry"  conditions  than  they  can 
under  "wet"  conditions,  and  at  a  far  less  cost.  For 
a  law  that  is  resented,  as  the  prohibition  law  is,  by 
a  large  proportion  of  the  citizens,  stands  less  chance 
of  being  enforced  than  a  regulatory  law,  which  usually 
has  the  approval  of  a  large  majority  of  the  com- 
munity; and  since  such  prohibitory  law  precludes  the 
imposition  of  a  tax  on  the  traffic,  the  profitableness 
of  the  traffic  naturally  increases  in  proportion. 

I  remember  the  time  when  the  mere  suggestion  that 
the  brewing  industry  should,  by  any  action  of  its  own, 
appear  to  hold  itself  responsible  for  the  evils  that  have 
crept  into  the  retail  liquor  traffic  would  have  been 
received  by  those  engaged  in  that  industry  with  scorn 


108  A  Brewer's  Standpoint. 

and  derision.  This  is  no  longer  so,  and  in  saying  this 
I  am  claiming  no  more  credit  for  the  brewer  than  that 
of  having  sufficient  intelligence  to  recognize  that  those 
who  are  so  anxious  to  bury  him  have  been  shrewdly 
encouraging  him  in  the  interesting  operation  of  assist- 
ing to  dig  his  own  grave.  "The  conduct  of  the  liquor 
traffic  is  our  chief  asset,"  said  the  general  superinten- 
dent of  the  Anti-Saloon  League,  when  addressing 
the  recent  convention  of  that  league  in  Chicago.  In 
other  words,  he  meant:  "We  rejoice  in  the  increase 
of  evil  that  good  may  come  of  it."  The  sentiment  is 
one  of  rather  doubtful  morality.  But  since  the  brewer 
has  learned  that  the  great  difficulty  of  making  "dry" 
territory  "wet"  again  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  dive- 
keeper  and  his  friends  in  such  territory  join  hands 
with  the  Anti-Saloon  League  forces  in  again  voting 
it  "dry,"  mere  sentiments  of  doubtful  morality  from 
that  quarter  no  longer  surprise  him. 

The  brewer  has  come  to  a  gradual  understanding  of 
the  method  underlying  the  apparent  madness  of  his 
enemy,  and  his  changing  attitude  regarding  the  need 
of  taking  a  hand  in  remedying  the  growing  evils  of 
the  traffic  upon  which  he  largely  depends  for  a  market 
is  the  result  of  that  understanding.  The  mere  public 
outcry  against  those  evils  failed  to  accomplish  this, 
and  perhaps  not  unnaturally  so.  If  laws  were  not 
enforced,  why  should  the  brewer  feel  called  upon  to 
enforce  them  against  his  own  customers?  Why  should 


A  Brewer's  Standpoint.  109 

he  be  expected  to  be  more  circumspect  in  his  business 
methods  or  in  the  choice  of  those  to  whom  he  sells  his 
goods  than  any  other  merchant  or  manufacturer?  Does 
the  business  of  any  other  commercial  man  involve  the 
duty  on  his  part  of  inquiring  into  or  regulating  the 
moral  conduct  of  those  who  buy  from  him?  Such  used 
to  be  some  of  the  arguments .  offered  in  reply  to  any 
suggestion  that  the  industry  should  assume  the  burden 
of  the  duties  neglected  by  those  to  whom  the  execution 
of  the  law  is  intrusted. 

I  am  not  defending  or  apologizing  for  the  brewer; 
I  am  merely  dwelling  on  the  psychology,  if  you  please, 
of  such  contributory  negligence  as  he  may  have  been 
guilty  of  in  the  premises.  Incidentally,  too,  I  am  try- 
ing to  pave  the  way  for  an  explanation  of  the  awkward 
and  difficult  position  in  which,  whether  by  his  own  fault 
or  not,  the  brewer  finds  himself  placed  to-day,  and  by 
what  means  he  is  endeavoring  to  extricate  himself  from 
it.  Let  it  be  borne  in  mind,  in  this  connection,  that 
the  brewing  industry,  no  more  than  any  other  trade, 
profession  or  calling,  can  prevent  persons  of  lax 
principles  or  indifferent  morals  from  engaging  in  the 
business.  In  spite  of  statements  to  the  contrary,  how- 
ever, inspired  by  that  tendency  to  exaggeration  which 
characterizes  most  utterances  against  the  so-called 
liquor  man,  I  maintain  that  the  brewing  fraternity, 
as  a  whole,  will  compare  favorably  in  this  regard  with 
any  other  industrial  or  professional  body  of  men.  The 


110  A  Brewer's  Standpoint. 

more  intelligent  members  of  the  trade  have,  indeed, 
been  for  years  nervously  alive  to  the  growing  evils 
that  have  become  incident  to  the  traffic  which  is  so 
closely  allied  to  theirs,  and  to  the  need  of  correcting 
them.  But  it  is  a  long  step  from  the  realization  of 
that  which  is  necessary  to  be  done  to  the  accomplish- 
ment of  that  which  it  is  necessary  to  do.  Unanimity 
of  action  is  the  condition  precedent  to  all  success  that 
depends  upon  the  co-operation  of  many  diverse  ele- 
ments, and  this  must  be  preceded  by  unanimity  of 
understanding. 

It  was  the  alarming  increase  in  the  evil  features 
attached  to  the  retail  liquor  traffic,  brought  about  by 
the  prohibition  movement,  which  first  awakened  all 
ranks  in  the  brewing  industry  to  a  full  conception  of 
the  need  of  energetic  action  to  preserve  what,  for  the 
want  of  a  better  term,  I  will  call  the  legitimacy  of  that 
traffic.  This  awakening  has  been  followed  in  different 
States  by  different  policies,  all  having  in  view  a  co- 
operation on  the  part  of  the  industry  with  the  authori- 
ties charged  with  the  execution  of  the  laws  regulating 
the  retail  selling  of  liquor.  It  was  recognized  on  all 
hands  that  not  want  of  law,  but  want  of  law  enforce- 
ment, was  the  cause  of  the  trouble;  and  since  the 
brewer  had  been  pretty  generally  charged  with  being 
the  aider  and  abettor  of  the  law-defying  retailer,  it 
was  not  unnaturally  supposed  by  the  brewing  industry 
that,  by  formally  serving  notice  on  the  authorities  that 


A  Brewer's  Standpoint.  Ill 

it  would  support  and  aid  any  endeavors  of  the  adminis- 
trations tending  to  the  discouragement  of  lawlessness 
in  the  trade,  the  reluctance  of  those  administrations  to 
enforce  the  law  on  that  score  would  promptly  vanish. 

In  this  supposition,  however,  the  brewer  has  found 
himself  utterly  deceived.  In  the  State  of  Ohio,  for 
instance,  for  which  I  am  able  to  speak  from  detailed 
experience,  this  attitude  of  the  industry  as  a  body  was 
received,  first,  with  incredulity,  then  with  derision,  and 
finally  with  open  or  concealed  antagonism.  The  in- 
credulity applied  to  the  sincerity  of  the  movement, 
while  the  derision  was  called  forth  by  the  efforts  made 
by  the  trade  to  put  the  new  policy  into  effect.  The 
antagonism  followed  when  it  became  evident  that  those 
efforts  were  really  of  a  determined  nature  and  that 
they  threatened  to  prove  successful.  Three  instances, 
out  of  many,  will  best  illustrate  my  meaning,  and  at 
the  same  time  explain  in  some  detail  the  character  of 
the  task  undertaken  by  the  brewers  in  that  State  and 
the  difficulties  attending  its  accomplishment. 

Over  two  years  ago,  when  the  brewers  of  Ohio  estab- 
lished what  is  known  to-day  as  the  Ohio  Brewers'  Vigi- 
lance Bureau,  a  certain  notorious  concert  hall  selling 
liquors  in  the  largest  city  of  the  State  was  one  of  the 
first  urgent  cases  called  to  the  attention  of  the  bureau. 
The  place,  which  was  situated  on  one  of  the  busiest 
thoroughfares  of  the  city,  had  become  a  by-word.  It 
was  run  and  controlled  by  a  city  politician,  for  eighteen 


112  A  Brewer  s  Standpoint. 

years  a  member  of  the  city  council,  and  supposedly  so 
powerful  as  to  be  invulnerable  to  attack  from  any 
quarter.  The  Vigilance  Bureau,  to  obviate  any  sus- 
picion of  partisanship,  invited  the  co-operation  of  half 
a  dozen  prominent  citizens,  who  were  known  for  their 
philanthropic  work  and  who  personally  gathered  the 
evidence  required  to  prove  the  utterly  disreputable  char- 
acter of  the  place.  This  evidence  was  placed  before 
the  mayor,  the  chief  of  police  and  the  county  prose- 
cutor, with  the  demand  that  the  concert  license  of  the 
hall  be  revoked.  The  mayor  declined  to  act;  the  chief 
of  police  rudely  •  told  the  brewers  to  mind  their  own 
business,  and  publicly  assailed  them  in  the  newspapers, 
accusing  them  of  insincerity;  while  the  county  prose- 
cutor declared  that,  with  all  the  evidence  placed  at  his 
command,  it  would  be  impossible  to  get  a  jury  to  con- 
vict the  proprietor  of  the  hall.  All  this  in  face  of  the 
fact  that  the  entire  community  knew  of  the  disreputable 
character  of  the  place,  and  every  respectable  citizen 
desired  that  it  should  be  closed. 

Within  a  year  of  this  first  effort  an  election  took 
place,  one  of  the  results  of  which  was  the  entry  into 
office  of  a  county  prosecutor  nominated  by  the  minority 
political  party.  This  man  had  announced  his  inten- 
tion to  assist  in  the  so-called  clean-up  movement,  and 
immediately  upon  his  induction  into  office  the  entire 
detective  force  of  the  Vigilance  Bureau  was  placed  at 
his  disposal,  with  the  result  that  indictment  after  in- 


A  Brewer  s  Standpoint.  113 

dictment  was  secured  against  the  proprietor  of  the  hall 
and  vigorous  prosecutions  were  instituted;  but  in  every 
case  the  jury  disagreed.  Meanwhile,  nevertheless,  the 
notoriety  of  the  place  resulting  from  these  efforts  had 
become  so  great  that  the  proprietor  was  forced  to  retire 
from  the  city  council.  After  the  last  disagreement  of 
the  jury  the  county  prosecutor  lost  heart  and  was  about 
to  abandon  what  appeared  to  be  a  hopeless  fight.  We 
urged  him,  however,  to  fight  on,  offering  to  continue 
to  bear  the  expense  of  gathering  new  evidence,  and  he 
was  finally  convinced  by  our  argument  that,  if  we  but 
persisted  in  prosecuting,  neither  the  man  himself  could 
stand  the  pace,  nor  could  the  administration  afford  to 
remain  inactive  in  face  of  the  continued  publicity  given 
to  the  facts.  Curiously  enough,  within  three  days  after 
our  obtaining  the  prosecutor's  assurance  that  he  would 
not  give  up  the  struggle,  the  newly  elected  mayor  of  the 
city,  a  man,  by  the  way,  of  the  highest  type  of  citizen- 
ship, who  had  meanwhile  quietly  investigated  the  place 
for  himself,  called  in  the  proprietor  and  ordered  him 
to  close  up.  This  event  occurred  within  a  couple  of 
weeks  of  the  present  writing.  The  fight  has  lasted 
nearly  three  years,  but  not  the  least  important  of  its 
fruits  is  that  we  are  now  reasonably  certain  that  the 
closing  up  of  similar  joints  in  the  same  city  will  prove 
a  comparatively  easy  task. 

In  another  city,  located  in  the  center  of  the  State, 
where  the  conditions  of  the  retail  liquor  traffic  had  been 


114  A  Brewer's  Standpoint. 

described  to  us  as  particularly  disgraceful,  our  bureau 
offered  its  assistance  to  the  mayor  and  the  chief  of 
police,  with  the  result  that  we  were  practically  ordered 
to  leave  the  town.  Two  breweries  were  located  there, 
and,  privately  assisted  by  the  proprietor  of  one  of  them, 
our  operatives  started  to  gather  evidence,  with  the 
view  of  instituting  proceedings  against  the  most  fla- 
grant of  the  lawbreakers.  In  the  course  of  their 
investigations  it  became  abundantly  clear  that  both  the 
mayor  and  the  chief  of  police  collected  large  sums  of 
money  from  the  dive-keepers,  in  return  for  which  these 
men  were  held  immune  from  arrest  for  breaking  the 
law.  The  local  saloonkeepers'  organization,  consisting 
of  the  respectable  element  of  the  trade,  was  approached 
by  the  bureau,  which  found  its  efforts  enthusiastically 
welcomed  in  that  quarter.  But  no  urging  could  induce 
the  organization  to  openly  identify  itself  with  the  work 
of  the  bureau.  No  saloonkeeper,  we  were  told,  could 
exist  in  business  for  a  week  if  he  openly  indorsed  our 
operations,  as  he  would  be  hounded  by  the  police  and 
closed  up  on  some  pretext  or  other.  The  case  looked 
desperate,  when  it  occurred  to  me  to  invite  a  committee 
of  citizens  to  assist  us.  A  prominent  clergyman  of  the 
town  had  for  a  time  interested  himself  in  our  work,  and 
I  instructed  our  superintendent  to  approach  him  and, 
if  possible,  arrange  for  me  to  have  an  interview  with 
him.  This  was  accomplished,  but,  in  informing  me  of 
the  clergyman's  willingness  to  meet  me,  our  superin- 


A  Brewer's  Standpoint.  115 

tendent  wrote  me  at  some  length,  warning  me  to  avoid 
saying  anything  that  would  cause  the  reverend  gentle- 
man to  suspect  that,  in  joining  such  a  committee,  he 
might  become  entangled  in  the  local  political  campaign, 
which  just  at  that  moment  had  reached  a  rather  acute 
stage.  The  mayor,  our  superintendent  said,  was  a 
candidate  for  re-election,  and  his  opponent,  who  prom- 
ised a  clean  administration,  was  making  political  capi- 
tal of  the  disclosures  brought  about  by  our  bureau. 

On  meeting  the  clergyman,  I  opened  the  negotiations 
by  simply  handing  him  the  superintendent's  letter  to 
read  and  asking  him  whether  it  was  true  that  such  a 
consideration  as  was  mentioned  in  the  letter  would 
prevent  him  from  lending  us  his  assistance.  He  ad- 
mitted frankly  that  it  would,  whereupon  I  inquired, 
firstly,  whether  he  believed  that,  if  the  present  admin- 
istration of  his  city  were  continued  in  office,  there  would 
be  any  hope  of  betterment  in  the  existing  deplorable 
conditions;  and,  secondly,  whether  he  considered  that 
the  man  who  was  running  for  the  office  of  mayor  in 
opposition  to  the  present  incumbent  was  sincere  in 
his  declaration  that  he  would  clean  out  the  dives.  He 
answered  the  first  question  in  the  negative  and  the 
second  in  the  affirmative.  I  then  risked  the  following 
rather  blunt  proposition:  "Am  I  to  understand,  then, 
that  you,  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  will  knowingly  let 
your  city  go  to  perdition  rather  than  risk  exciting  the 
suspicion  that  you  are  concerned  in  the  local  political 
campaign?" 


116  A  Brewer's  Standpoint. 

He  thought  that  I  was  putting  the  case  rather 
strongly,  whereupon  I  defined  my  own  position  in  the 
matter  as  a  brewer,  stating  frankly  that  I  had  no  phil- 
anthropic motives  whatever  in  worrying  about  the 
existence  of  dives  in  a  city  which  I  had  never  seen  and 
was  never  likely  to  see,  but  that  I  was  actuated  solely 
by  selfish  considerations  in  the  matter — the  first  con- 
sideration being  that  the  disreputable,  liquor-selling 
dive  is  a  detriment  to  my  business ;  and  the  second  that 
it  is  personally  distasteful  to  me  to  be  concerned  in 
any  business  which,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  can  be 
connected  with  that  which  is  disreputable  and  offensive. 
The  upshot  of  the  interview  was  that  the  clergyman 
consented  to  act  on  the  citizens'  committee.  Wholesale 
prosecutions  followed,  exposing,  if  not  the  utter  cor- 
ruptness, at  any  rate  the  complete  indifference  of  the 
existing  administration  to  the  open  disregard  of  the 
law  on  the  part  of  the  dive-keepers,  and  resulting  at 
the  polls — in  what?  The  re-election  of  the  mayor,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  both  the  local  brewers  and  the 
saloonkeepers'  association  had  been  encouraged  by  our 
determined  action  to  come  out  openly  against  him. 

Discouraging,  was  it  not?  But  listen  to  the  sequel. 
The  mayor  had  had  the  fight  of  his  life,  and  by  keeping 
our  operatives  on  the  ground  after  the  election,  we 
succeeded  in  making  him  realize  that  the  fight  was  even 
then  not  over.  He  has  since  actually  appealed  for  our 
aid,  and. has  decided  that  the  day  of  dives  and  official 


A  Brewer's  Standpoint.  117 

graft  in  his  bailiwick  has  come  to  an  end.  As  an 
amusing  comment  on  the  entire  situation,  I  subjoin 
the  following  two  letters,  which  are  among  many  that 
our  bureau  has  received  from  mayors,  sheriffs,  prose- 
cuting attorneys,  citizens'  committees,  and  even  judges, 
in  every  part  of  the  State,  testifying  to  the  efficient 
work  of  our  Vigilance  Bureau: 

MAYOR'S  OFFICE ,  Ohio,  January  14,  1910. 

Mr.    Gale   M.    Hartley,    Superintendent   Ohio    Brewers'    Vigilance 
Bureau,  Dayton,  Ohio. 

Dear  Sir:  The  work  in  the  city  of of  the  Ohio  Brew- 
ers' Association  through  their  Vigilance  Bureau  has  been  productive 
of  great  results,  inasmuch  as  the  conditions  of  the  retail  liquor  traffic 
in  this  city  have  been  greatly  improved.  The  bureau  has  always 
shown  a  willingness  to  co-operate  with  the  city's  administration  in 
any  work  attempted  for  the  betterment  of  the  local  saloon  condition. 

Very  truly  yours Mayor. 

The Board  of  Trade Ohio,  January  15,  1910. 

Mr.  Gale  M.  Hartley,  State  Superintendent  Ohio  Brewers'  Vigilance 
Bureau,  Dayton,  Ohio. 

My  Dear  Mr.  Hartley:     On  behalf  of  the Board  of 

Trade  and  our  good  citizens  generally,  I  desire  to  thank  you  for 
the  great  good  you  have  accomplished  in  our  city.  We  appreciate 
your  efforts  and  success  the  more  because  of  our  knowledge  of 
existing  conditions,  the  authorities  being  in  league  and  in  sympathy 
with  the  violators  of  the  law  placed  every  obstacle  possible  in  your 
way.  It  is  the  hope  of  the  better  element  of  our  city  that  your 
organization  continue  its  labors  here,  until  law-abiding  citizens  are 

placed  in  charge  of  affairs.     Cordially  yours President 

Board  of  Trade. 

For  obvious  reasons  I  omit  to  give  the  real  signatures 
to  these  letters.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  first  was  writ- 
ten by  the  re-elected  mayor  of  the  city  in  question,  and 
the  second  by  the  president  of  the  Board  of  Trade  of 


118  A  Brewer's  Standpoint. 

that  city,  who  is  the  man  who  ran  for  the  office  of 
mayor  in  opposition  to  the  present  re-elected  incumbent 
of  that  office.  Further  comment  is  surely  needless. 
The  third  instance  will  prove  the  variety  of  the  experi- 
ences that  await  the  worker  in  this  peculiar  field. 

In  one  of  the  most  important  centers  of  the  State,  in 
which  the  liquor  interests  are  strongly  represented,  the 
following  conditions  confronted  those  interested  in 
the  last  fall  campaign:  The  one  political  party  (I 
need  not  mention  which)  nominated  a  so-called  "dry" 
man  for  mayor,  while  the  other  chose  an  "ultra-wet." 
The  former  announced  his  intention  to  close  the  saloons 
on  Sunday  and  wipe  out  every  disreputable  drinking 
place  in  the  city.  The  latter  promised  a  wide-open 
town.  The  "interests"  were  in  a  quandary  as  to  which 
candidate  to  support.  They  were  anxious  to  promote 
the  so-called  "clean-up"  movement,  but  they  feared  the 
well-known  prohibition  proclivities  of  the  "dry"  candi- 
date. The  advice  of  the  Vigilance  Bureau  to  them  was 
that  they  should  come  out  for  the  man  who  stood  for 
law  and  order.  Unfortunately,  this  advice  was  not 
heeded,  and  the  "dry"  candidate  was  elected  without 
having  had  the  indorsement  of  the  liberals.  Imme- 
diately after  the  election,  the  superintendent  of  the 
Brewers'  Vigilance  Bureau  presented  himself  to  the 
mayor-elect  and  offered  him  the  services  of  the  bureau. 
The  mayor-elect,  before  accepting,  stipulated  that  some 
one  speaking  authoritatively  for  the  brewers  should 


A  Brewer's  Standpoint.  119 

confirm  this  offer;  and  as  chairman  of  the  Vigilance 
Bureau  I  immediately  sought  an  interview  with  him, 
in  which  I  explained  in  detail  the  work  we  were  doing 
and  what  good  it  could  accomplish  if  we  received  the 
co-operation  of  the  local  administration.  It  transpired, 
during  the  conversation,  that  Sunday  closing  was  the 
chief  hobby  of  the  mayor-elect,  and,  though  reluctantly, 
I  agreed  to  lend  our  assistance  in  enforcing  any  Sun- 
day-closing orders  issued  by  him,  provided  the  admin- 
istration would  apply  itself  with  equal  energy  to  the 
wiping  out  of  the  disreputable  joints. 

In  pursuance  of  this  agreement,  our  superintendent 
and  staff  of  operatives  presented  themselves  at  the 
mayor's  office  on  January  1st,  the  day  of  that  official's 
induction,  and  within  ten  days  the  administration  was 
in  possession  of  overwhelming  evidence  regarding  the 
character  of  every  lawless  drinking  resort  in  the  city. 
All  that  was  now  needed  was  to  raid  these  places  and 
prosecute  the  owners.  But  weeks  passed,  and  nothing 
was  done.  The  mayor  had  meanwhile  appointed  a 
well-known  adherent  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  as 
his  director  of  public  safety,  and  had  issued  a  statement 
to  the  newspapers  to  the  effect  that  he  had  been 
assured  of  the  assistance  both  of  the  Anti- Saloon 
League  and  the  brewers  in  cleaning  up  the  town.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  closing  of  the  saloons 
on  Sunday  was  the  only  task  to  which  he  really  applied 
himself,  and  with  the  result  that  the  people  who  were 


120  A  Brewer's  Standpoint. 

accustomed  to  frequent  the  saloons  on  Sunday  flocked 
in  crowds  on  that  day  to  the  outlying  country  dis- 
tricts, in  order  to  seek  there  the  wonted  recreation 
which  was  now  denied  them  within  the  city  limits.  In 
an  incredibly  short  time  many  drinking  places  were 
started  in  these  rural  localities,  most  of  them  catering 
to  the  riff-raff  of  the  city  population,  and  the  cry  went 
up  from  the  brewing  interests  and  others  that,  unless 
the  Sunday-closing  order  were  extended  to  these  dis- 
tricts and  strictly  enforced,  the  Sunday  evil  which  had 
been  eliminated  from  the  city,  where  it  could  at  least 
be  kept  under  control,  would  merely  be  driven  into  the 
surrounding  townships,  where  the  means  of  regulation 
and  control  were  totally  lacking. 

At  this  juncture  our  superintendent  appealed  to  me 
to  come  to  the  city  and  remonstrate  with  the  mayor, 
firstly,  regarding  his  inactivity  toward  the  lawless 
resorts  in  the  city;  and,  secondly,  on  account  of  his 
refusal  to  avail  himself  of  the  power  vested  in  him  to 
extend  the  city  jurisdiction  to  the  outlying  townships 
and  insist  upon  the  Sunday-closing  order  being  obeyed 
in  those  townships  as  it  was  obeyed  in  the  city  proper. 
I  promptly  complied,  but  all  my  remonstrances  proved 
unavailing.  To  my  statement  that,  in  driving  the 
objectionable  Sunday  resort  out  of  the  city  and  allow- 
ing it  to  flourish  undisturbed  in  the  surrounding  locali- 
ties, the  mayor  was  acting  like  the  housemaid  who  stirs 
up  the  dust  in  one  corner  of  the  room  and  merely 
allows  it  to  settle  down  again  in  another  corner,  instead 


A  Brewer's  Standpoint.  121 

of  continuing  to  sweep  until  the  dust  has  been  swept 
out  of  the  window,  his  Honor  replied  that  he  was 
merely  concerned  in  the  immediate  city's  welfare  and 
did  not  feel  inclined  to  interfere  in  the  outlying  dis- 
tricts, where  the  township  authorities  had  power  to  act 
as  well  as  he.  All  I  could  obtain  from  him  was  a  prom- 
ise that  he  would  personally  accompany  our  superin- 
tendent the  following  Sunday  on  a  tour  of  inspection 
through  these  districts,  and  then  finally  decide  whether 
he  would  take  a  hand  in  closing  the  objectionable 
Sunday  resorts  or  leave  us  to  do  so  unaided. 

This  tour  of  inspection  was  carried  out,  but  without 
altering  the  mayor's  attitude  in  the  matter.  On  the 
subject  of  the  prosecution  or  closing  up  of  the  notorious 
city  joints,  of  whose  lawless  practices  we  had  supplied 
him  with  all  the  necessary  evidence,  it  was  just  as 
difficult  to  move  him.  "Give  me  time,"  he  said.  "I 
don't  want  to  act  harshly  with  these  people.  I  have 
warned  them,  and  if  they  do  not  heed  my  warning,  I 
will  deal  with  them  without  mercy."  I  pointed  out 
that,  upon  his  own  admission,  many  of  these  resorts 
had  ceased  their  lawless  practices  the  moment  our 
Vigilance  Bureau  was  known  to  be  on  the  ground 
and  active  (an  experience,  by  the  way,  which  we  find 
to  be  pretty  general ) ,  but  that,  since  the  administration 
had  refrained  for  weeks  and  weeks  from  taking  action 
against  the  dives  generally,  they  had  returned  to  their 
old  methods  of  doing  business.  Thus  urged,  his  Honor 


122  A  Brewer's  Standpoint. 

grew  peevish  and  exclaimed,  "Don't  press  me  so  hard! 
I  have  many  interests  to  consider,  and,  besides,  I  have 
to  be  careful  that  I  do  no  political  damage."  The  last 
words,  I  think,  slipped  out  by  accident.  But  they  told 
the  whole  story,  and  soon  afterward  I  withdrew  as 
gracefully  as  I  could.  When  we  had  regained  the 
street,  I  turned  to  our  superintendent,  who  had  been 
present  during  the  interview,  and  asked  him  what  he 
thought  of  this  specimen  of  a  "dry"  mayor.  His  reply 
was  characteristic  of  him,  for  he  is  a  man  of  few  words. 
"He's  in  a  hole,"  he  said.  "He  thought  you  were  bluff- 
ing him  when  you  offered  to  help  him  clean  up  his  city, 
and  now  he  finds  that  you  have  called  his  bluff,  not  he 
yours,  and  that  worries  him."  I  could  multiply  exam- 
ples of  this  kind  almost  ad  infinitum.  But  do  not 
let  it  be  supposed  that  they  imply  a  hopeless  or  desper- 
ate condition  of  affairs. 

In  the  two  and  a  half  years  that  our  Vigilance  Bu- 
reau has  been  operating,  a  marked  change  has  taken 
place  in  the  attitude  of  the  authorities  generally  toward 
it,  and  even  the  "dry"  mayor  I  have  just  described 
has  earnestly  requested  us  not  to  wfthdraw  our  support 
from  him — a  request  we  have  cheerfully  complied  with. 
The  fact  is  that,  whatever  view  these  authorities  may 
take  of  our  sincerity  in  the  campaign  we  are  conducting, 
they  have  gradually  learned  that  one  element  of  society, 
at  least,  takes  us  very  seriously,  and  that  element  is  the 
divekeeper  himself,  for  he  runs  to  cover  like  a  fright- 


A  Brewer's  Standpoint.  12& 

ened  hare  the  moment  the  forces  of  the  Vigilance  Bureau 
enter  the  town  where  he  operates.  This  is  generally 
acknowledged.  If  we  could  only  make  the  dive-keeper 
believe  that  the  duly  constituted  authorities,  with  whom 
we  co-operate  or  endeavor  to  co-operate,  were  as 
sincere  and  as  serious  as  we  are,  the  battle  against  the 
disorderly  element  in  the  business  would  be  won  within 
twenty-four  hours  in  every  city  in  the  State.  To  those 
who  can  read  between  the  lines,  it  must  be  evident  what 
is  the  cause  of  this  want  of  co-operation  with  us  on 
the  part  of  the  usual  run  of  city  officials.  They  aim, 
in  fact,  to  secure  the  support  of  two  opposite  camps. 
Thus  they  cater  to  the  respectable  voter  by  promising 
thorough  reforms,  and  curry  favor  with  the  disorderly 
element  of  the  citizenship  by  not  carrying  them  out. 
In  other  words,  politics  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  evil 
we  are  discussing.  The  three  primary  essentials  to 
the  success  of  such  efforts  as  we  have  put  forth  in  this 
respect  in  Ohio  are  courage,  determination  and  pa- 
tience. Let  me  say  a  word  here  for  the  indiscriminately 
abused  retailer. 

I  assert — and  I  do  so  with  a  full  and  complete  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject — that  the  genuine  and  legitimate 
American  saloonkeeper  is  as  commendable  a  type  of 
the  average  American  citizen  as  any  that  could  be 
cited,  not  excluding  that  aggressively  moral  and  self- 
assertive  type  which  is  made  up  of  many  of  those  who 
seek  and  work  for  his  extinction  and  extermination. 


124  A  Brewer's  Standpoint. 

The  proportion  among  those  of  this  latter  type  who 
disgrace  the  body  to  which  they  belong  is  no  smaller 
than  the  proportion  of  men  who  have  invaded  the  trade 
of  the  saloonkeeper  for  no  other  purpose  than  that  of 
using  it  as  a  cloak  beneath  which  to  conceal  objects  of 
a  vicious  and  nefarious  character,  which  are  totally 
foreign  to  that  trade.  The  only  difference  between  the 
two  cases  consists  in  the  fact  that  the  main  body  of 
saloon  men,  who  are  only  too  anxious  to  conduct  a 
decent  and  respectable  business,  are  forced  by  the 
exigencies  of  competition  to  disregard  the  law,  owing 
to  the  circumstance  that  some  disreputable  neighbor 
is  permitted  to  break  it  with  impunity.  In  other 
words,  it  is  patent  that  you  cannot  extend  immunity 
from  the  law  to  a  few  favored  individual  members  of 
a  trade  or  industry  without  eventually  compelling  every 
member  of  that  trade  or  industry  to  demand  the  same 
immunity  or  to  take  it  unasked.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  midnight-closing  ordinance  as  a  mild  example.  I 
can  cite  dozens  of  cities  where  ninety  per  cent  of  the 
saloonkeepers  are  in  favor  of  the  enforcement  of  this 
ordinance,  and  yet  every  one  of  them  breaks  it.  Why? 
Because  a  favored  few  have  the  privilege  of  disregard- 
ing it  with  impunity,  with  the  consequence  that  their 
many  competitors  are  compelled  either  to  arrogate  to 
themselves  the  same  privilege  or  see  their  business 
swallowed  up  by  their  favored  neighbor.  The  same 
argument  applies  to  every  lawless  feature  of  this  trade, 


A  Brewer's  Standpoint.  125 

and  I  say  without  hesitation  that  any  city  administra- 
tion which  will  show  the  courage  or  the  honesty  to  en- 
force the  existing  laws  fairly  and  impartially  will  have 
the  great  majority  of  the  retail  liquor  dealers  with  it. 

No  better  proof  of  the  character  and  standing  of  the 
saloon  man  could  be  adduced  than  has  been  afforded 
by  the  attitude  of  the  saloonkeepers  of  Ohio  toward 
the  Brewers'  Vigilance  Bureau.  Though  the  bureau 
has  operated  in  over  fifty  cities  of  the  State  and  con- 
ducted hundreds  of  prosecutions,  resulting  in  every 
case  either  in  the  closing  up  of  undesirable  resorts  or 
in  the  elimination  of  their  objectionable  features,  only 
one  single  complaint  or  remonstrance  has  reached  me 
in  all  this  time  from  the  trade  regarding  the  actions 
of  the  bureau,  while,  on  the  contrary,  resolution  upon 
resolution  has  been  passed  by  the  saloonkeepers'  asso- 
ciations in  every  part  of  the  State,  commending  those 
actions  and  urging  the  members  of  the  associations  to 
co-operate  with  the  bureau.  We  are  still  far  from 
having  accomplished  more  than  a  comparatively  small 
percentage  of  the  task  that  confronts  us,  but  we  have 
at  least  given  overwhelming  proof  that  the  remaining 
percentage,  however  large  it  may  seem,  can  be  accom- 
plished within  a  limit  of  time,  the  length  of  which  is 
dependent  exclusively  upon  the  measure  of  honest  co- 
operation afforded  us  by  the  authorities  whose  duties 
we  are  assisting  them  to  perform. 

Herein  lies,  in  my  humble  opinion,  the  true  and  only 


126  A  Brewer's  Standpoint. 

solution  of  the  so-called  liquor  question.  To  the 
theorists  and  moralists,  who  imagine  that  this  world 
of  ours  can  be  brought  to  a  state  of  perfection  by  a 
mere  stroke  of  the  legislative  pen,  let  me  say  this: 
It  may,  in  the  course  of  time,  be  possible,  for  the  good 
of  the  few,  to  wean  the  many  from  the  use  of  alcoholic 
beverages;  but,  if  this  is  their  theory,  it  is  against  the 
demand  that  they  should  direct  their  attack,  not 
against  the  source  of  supply.  To  merely  degrade  the 
channels  through  which  that  supply  flows,  which  is 
what  they  are  doing  to-day,  must  obviously  aggravate 
rather  than  lessen  the  evil  they  are  bent  on  destroying. 
Men  do  not  give  up  their  habits  in  obedience  to  a  mere 
fiat  of  the  law,  and  the  belief  of  the  anti-liquor  man 
that  he  is  confronted  with  a  mere  struggle  of  the  saloon 
for  its  existence  is  utterly  fallacious.  He  is  confronted 
with  a  struggle  for  that  existence  on  the  part  of  the 
people  who  want  the  saloon  and  the  refreshment  it 
affords  them. 

Is  there  any  thinking  man  who  believes  that,  if  this 
"wet"  and  "dry"  question  were  merely  one  between  an 
industry  or  trade,  however  large,  and  the  people  of 
the  country  as  a  whole,  it  would  be  convulsing  the 
nation  from  one  end  to  the  other  as  it  is  convulsing  it 
to-day,  arraying  city  against  country,  splitting  up  great 
political  parties,  and  shaking  at  the  very  foundations 
of  our  social  and  economic  being?  What,  indeed,  would 
the  saloonkeeper  amount  to  in  this  fight  if  he  stood 


A  Brewer's  Standpoint.  127 

alone  and  had  not  the  people  behind  him  who  have  the 
want  and  the  desire  for  that  which  he  supplies?  Why, 
he  would  be  brushed  aside  like  a  feather!  Without 
the  demand  for  liquid  refreshment  in  a  community,  no 
saloon  could  exist  there.  And,  mark  further:  it  is  not 
the  saloon  that  makes  the  people  of  a  community  what 
they  are;  it  is  the  people  of  a  community  that  make 
the  saloon  in  that  community  what  it  is.  The  dives  and 
joints  which  abound  in  every  "dry"  town  or  district 
are  only  too  conclusive  proof  of  this.  Our  would-be 
reformers  say  that  the  "criminal"  saloon  is  the  breeding 
ground  of  the  criminal  classes.  The  truth,  of  course, 
is  just  the  reverse.  It  is  the  criminal  classes  who  are 
the  breeders  of  the  "criminal"  saloon,  and  our  teachers 
and  preachers,  upon  whose  efforts  the  advancement  and 
the  betterment  of  mankind  depend,  should  devote 
their  energies  to  the  conversion  and  redemption  of  the 
delinquent  citizen,  who  creates  the  bad  saloon,  rather 
than  waste  those  energies  in  futile  attempts  to  cure 
his  delinquency  by  merely  destroying  that  which  he 
creates. 


Some  Fallacies  and  a  Moral 


Address  delivered  before  the  Convention  of  the  National 
Wholesale  Liquor  Dealers'  Association,  at  Cincin- 
nati, Ohio,  May  25,  1910 

I  don't  know  how  a  half-hour  can  be  more  profitably 
employed  by  men  in  our  business,  surrounded  as  we 
are  by  a  mingled  army  of  critics  and  detractors,  foes 
moralistic  and  theoristic,  reformers  and  inquisitors, 
historians  of  doubtful  knowledge,  and  statisticians  of 
still  more  doubtful  veracity — I  say,  I  don't  know  how 
we  could  better  employ  a  half-hour  than  by  taking 
stock  of  ourselves  and  of  this  army  of  heterogeneous 
elements  that  invests  us.  The  wise  and  the  ignorant, 
the  sincere  and  the  insincere,  are  so  strangely  mingled 
in  this  curious  army  that  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish 
the  ignorant  from  the  wise,  and  the  sincere  from  the 
insincere,  for  the  wise  among  them  often  display  the 
most  shocking  ignorance,  and  the  sincere  frequently 
verge  so  dangerously  near  the  brink  of  insincerity  ^  that 
one  is  at  times  doubtful  how  to  classify  them  at  all. 

Now,  I  trust  I  shall  not  shock  you  too  greatly  when 
I  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  same  description  is  not 
entirely  inapplicable  to  the  ranks  in  our  own  army. 


Fallacies  and  a  Moral.  129L 

We,  too,  have  our  wise  and  our  ignorant,  our  sincere 
and  our  insincere,  and  the  difficulty  in  distinguishing 
the  one  from  the  other  is  scarcely  less  great.  And 
what  applies  to  the  individuals  on  either  side  applies 
with  equal  force  to  what  they  say  and  do.  The  falla- 
cies are  not  all  on  one  side,  nor  are  the  morals.  Wis- 
dom is  not  monopolized  by  the  one  faction,  nor  is  folly 
the  exclusive  property  of  the  other.  And  when  we 
come  to  logic — well,  there  are  not  a  few  in  both  parties 
who  seem  to  regard  it  with  much  the  same  kind  of 
sympathy  that  nature  is  supposed  to  entertain  for  a 
vacuum.  I  must  confess  at  least,  personally,  that  I 
have  rarely  read  an  article  dealing  with  the  liquor 
question,  either  from  the  wet  or  the  dry  point  of  view, 
nor  listened  to  a  debate  between  extreme  advocates  of 
either  faction,  in  which  the  arguments  of  both  have 
not  struck  me  as  being  a  mass  of  bewildering  contra- 
dictions. The  same  applies  to  the  facts  collected  and 
reported  by  more  or  less  impartial  observers  regarding 
the  conditions  prevailing  in  this  or  the  other  district 
of  the  country  where  one  side  has  temporarily  succeeded 
in  ousting  the  other.  In  a  recent  article,  for  instance, 
published  in  Pearson's  Magazine,  we  read  that  a  cer- 
tain State  has  shown  material  progress  since  the  enact- 
ment of  a  prohibitory  law,  from  which  fact,  the 
writer  says,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  such  law  has  not 
retarded  that  progress,  and  may  have  been  a  factor  in 
stimulating  it.  Yet,  immediately  following  this  state- 


130  Fallacies  and  a  Moral. 

ment,  and  the  conclusion  deduced  from  it,  we  learn,  as 
a  certain  fact  and  not  as  an  assumption,  that,  in  spite 
of  the  prohibitory  law,  enormous  quantities  of  worse 
liquors  are  sold  and  consumed  in  that  State  than  were 
sold  there  before.  Apply  to  these  two  statements  the 
simplest  rule  of  logic,  and  we  are  left  to  draw  from 
them  the  inevitable  and  absurd  conclusion  that  the 
worse  the  conditions  of  the  liquor  traffic  become,  owing 
to  the  peculiar  operation  (or,  must  we  say,  non- 
operation?)  of  the  prohibition  law,  the  greater  the 
business  prosperity  of  the  State  in  which  that  law 
operates,  or  fails  to  operate,  is  likely  to  be. 

In  line  with  these  strangely  contradictory  phenomena 
is  the  result  of  certain  statistical  data  we  have  just 
finished  collecting  and  tabulating  in  Ohio.  Here  we 
have  a  county  local  option  law,  which  has  been  opera- 
tive for  nearly  two  years  in  upwards  of  sixty  counties 
of  the  State.  In  these  counties,  in  which  the  sale  of 
liquor  has  been  prohibited  by  law,  the  following  facts, 
taken  in  each  case  from  the  official  records  extending 
over  the  past  three  years,  have  been  ascertained: 

1.  The  rate  of  taxation  has  largely  increased  since 
the  prohibitory  law  became  effective.     (This,  of  course, 
was  expected  by  the  wet  faction.) 

2.  The  arrests  for  drunkenness  have  materially  di- 
minished in  number.     (This  was  predicted  by  the  dry 
faction.) 

3.  The  number  of  indictments  for  felony  and  mis- 


Fallacies  and  a  Moral.  131- 

demeanor  shows  a  notable  increase.  (This  will  prob- 
ably come  as  a  surprise  to  both  the  wet  and  the  dry 
factions. ) 

Now  reconcile  these  facts,  if  you  can.  Of  course, 
the  advocates  of  prohibition  will  take  jubilant  comfort 
in  the  decline  of  the  number  of  arrests  for  drunken- 
ness. Whether  this  decline,  however,  means  that  less 
people  drink  to  excess  than  before  is  an  open  and  per- 
haps debatable  question.  Were  it  not  that  it  would 
take  too  long,  I  could  give  you  some  data  bearing  on 
this  question  that  would  throw  an  interesting  light  on 
the  methods  by  which  the  commercial  gentlemen  who 
make  their  living  by  agitating  the  liquor  question  con- 
trive to  cover  up  the  disastrous  truth,  which,  if  known, 
would  destroy  their  means  of  livelihood.  But  assuming 
the  fact  to  be  established  that  drunkenness  does  de- 
crease in  dry  territory,  wouldn't  the  accompanying  fact 
that  the  number  of  felonies  and  misdemeanors  increases  . 
seem  to  prove  that  sober  people  are  more  liable  to  com- 
mit crimes  than  drunken  peeople?  Such  a  conclusion 
would  be  manifestly  absurd,  yet  the  statistics  disclosed 
certainly  make  sad  havoc  of  the  prohibitionist's  stock 
argument,  that  drink  is  the  cause  of  ninety  per  cent  of 
all  the  crimes  committed.  Add  to  the  above  cited  three 
facts  the  indisputable  fourth  fact,  that  enormous  quan- 
tities of  worse  liquors  are  sold  in  these  "dry"  counties 
than  were  sold  in  them  before  they  became  "dry,"  and 
you  have  apparently  a  puzzle  compared  with  which 


132  Fallacies  and  a  Moral. 

the  most  intricate  problem  presented  in  higher  algebra 
is  mere  child's  play. 


*     * 


Now,  gentlemen,  it  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that 
the  cause  of  all  this  chaos  of  contradictory  conditions 
is  due  to  one  element  in  this  conflict  alone.  The  falla- 
cies of  the  prohibitionist  are  well  known  to  us.  But 
we  can  also  boast  of  some  fallacies  ourselves,  and  I 
think  they  throw  a  few  rays  of  light  into  the  bewilder- 
ing darkness  that  envelops  the  entire  situation.  I,  for 
one,  at  least,  do  not  believe,  as  so  many  of  us  are  so 
constantly  emphasizing,  that  the  prohibition  of  the 
liquor  traffic  has  a  retarding  influence  on  the  commer- 
cial and  social  progress  of  a  State  because  it  destroys 
an  established  trade,  throws  men  out  of  work,  causes 
depression  in  real  estate  and  other  values,  increases 
taxation,  and  does  all  the  many  other  things  which 
writers  and  speakers  on  our  side  are  so  fond  of  dwelling 
upon.  The  fact  is,  and  we  should  face  it,  that,  if  pro- 
hibition were  really  wanted  by  the  people,  they  would 
not  care  a  pin's  head  what  it  cost  them  or  us  to  get  it. 
Prohibition  is  the  curse  it  is  simply  because  it  is  admit- 
tedly a  hideous  farce,  because  it  does  not  destroy  the 
demand  for  liquor,  but  merely  degrades  the  channels 
through  which  the  supply  flows  which  satisfies  that 
demand.  It  is  the  lowering  of  the  moral  tone  of  the 
community,  consequent  upon  the  shocking  hypocrisy 
bred  by  the  prohibitory  law  which  is  at  the  root  of 


Fallacies  and  a  Moral.  133 

all  the  business  stagnation  that  invariably  follows  the 
imposition  of  that  law.  Men  of  enterprise,  men  of 
spirit  and  character,  men  of  progressive  ability,  natur- 
ally shun  a  State  where  they  can  only  exist  as  hypo- 
crites and  quasi-criminals.  Hence,  the  striking  differ- 
ence between  the  commercial  progress  made  in  such 
a  State  and  that  recorded  in  States  where  this  absurd 
law  does  not  exist.  For  it  is  men,  not  conditions,  that 
make  communities,  as  they  make  nations,  and  what 
man  who  boasts  of  any  dignity  and  self-respect  will 
remain  or  settle  in  a  community  where  he  is  reduced 
by  the  law  to  the  level  of  the  domestic  beast,  which 
must  have  a  master  to  control  its  appetites  because  it 
cannot  control  them  itself? 

Another  fallacy  into  which  some  of  our  friends  are 
prone  to  fall  is  the  supposition  that  the  so-called  anti- 
liquor  forces  are  composed  of  nothing  but  fanatics. 
They  are  not.  For  one  fanatic  in  their  ranks  I  say  that 
there  are  hundreds  who  merely  recognize  the  existence 
of  the  same  evil  that  we  recognize,  and,  seeing  no  way 
of  curing  it,  conclude  that  it  is  incurable,  and  that  there- 
fore no  other  remedy  is  left  but  the  complete  destruc- 
tion of  the  source  from  which  they  believe  the  evil 
emanates. 

Now,  I  dare  say,  some  of  you  gentlemen  have  noticed 
the  rather  muddy  conditions  of  our  Ohio  river  water. 
When  I  came  to  Cincinnati,  about  fourteen  years  ago, 
this  identical  water  was  the  water  I  had  to  take  my 


134  Fallacies  and  a  Moral. 

bath  in  every  morning,  and  I  am  frank  to  say  that  I 
used  to  curse,  first  the  water  works  of  our  city,  and 
then  the  Ohio  river  itself,  for  this  state  of  affairs.  To- 
day, thanks  to  the  intelligent  administration  of  our 
city,  I  enjoy  a  clean,  pellucid  bath  in  the  morning,  but, 
mark  you,  not  because  of  the  fact  that  a  commission  of 
lunatics  has  since  endeavored  to  stop  up  the  source  of 
the  Ohio  river,  but  because  an  enlightened  water  works 
commission  has  hit  upon  the  very  simple  device  of  filter- 
ing the  water  and  eliminating  from  it  the  extraneous 
mud  it  has  accumulated  on  its  passage  from  the  river's 
fountain  spring. 

If  the  story  of  the  liquor  question  can  be  expressed 
in  a  parable,  there  you  have  the  parable.  By  attempting 
to  clog  up  the  spring  from  which  the  river  flows,  all 
that  can  be  accomplished  is  to  increase  the  muddiness 
of  its  water,  and  a  very  small  percentage  of  mud,  as 
you  know,  makes  a  very  muddy  looking  river,  just  as  a 
very  few  rowdy  and  disreputable  saloons  make  a  very 
disreputable  looking  saloon  trade.  Remove  the  mud 
from  your  river  water,  and  you  will  have  no  kickers 
about  impure  water  left,  except  those  who  are  so  con- 
stituted that  they  kick  on  general  principles  against 
all  and  everything  that  exists.  By  the  like  token, 
divorce  from  the  saloon  trade  the  mud  of  prostitution 
and  gambling  and  other  foreign  parasitical  elements 
which  have  sucked  themselves  fast  to  that  trade,  and 
you  will  find  nothing  left  of  the  so-called  anti-liquor 


Fallacies  and  a  Moral.  135 

forces  but  the  fanatics,  and  perhaps  a  few  commercial 
schemers  who  will  be  busy  hunting  new  fields  of  easy 
profit. 

So  much,  then,  for  some  of  the  fallacies  and  contra- 
dictions that  cloud  the  issue  on  both  sides.  Now,  as 
to  the  moral  to  be  deduced  from  them,  if  I  may  be 
permitted  to  talk  morals  outside  of  a  prohibition  meet- 
ing, it  seems  to  me  to  be  this:  That  we  should  not 
forget,  in  our  indignation  over  the  many  blunders  the 
other  fellow  is  committing,  that  we  have  ourselves  some 
blunders  to  correct,  and  that  there  is  no  better  or 
more  forcible  way  of  showing  up  the  other  fellow's 
blunders  than  by  correcting  our  own. 

I  speak  as  a  brewer,  not  as  a  wholesale  liquor  man. 
But  I  am  of  those  who  believe  that  we  occupy  a  joint 
farm,  and  should  act  jointly,  as  joint  proprietors  of 
the  farm,  in  the  joint  interest  of  the  farm  and  the 
countryside  which  it  supplies.  The  farm  has  a  dump. 
All  farms  have,  even  the  ministerial  farm.  But  this 
particular  dump  has  been  permitted  to  be  used  as  a 
kind  of  general  depository  for  the  offal  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. It  has,  in  consequence,  grown  out  of  propor- 
tion large  for  the  size  of  the  farm,  and  the  countryside 
is  holding  its  nose.  Now,  it  is  no  use  for  us  to  stand 
squabbling  with  one  another  about  the  question  as  to 
which  of  us  deserves  the  greater  share  of  the  blame  for 
letting  this  dump  grow  to  its  unreasonable  size.  The 
fact  is  that  it  is  there,  on  our  joint  farm,  and,  by  way 


136  Fallacies  and  a  Moral. 

of  expressing  their  disapproval  of  dumps  in  general, 
some  philanthropical  neighbors  have  started  in  with 
pitchforks  to  dig  into  the  dump  and  stir  it  up,  and 
spread  its  putrid  stuff  broadcast,  making  the  neighbor- 
hood think  that  they  are  living,  not  near  one  dump, 
but  in  the  midst  of  a  thousand  dumps,  and  that  a  pesti- 
lence is  imminent.  Perhaps,  indeed,  a  pestilence  may  be 
imminent,  but  not  owing  to  the  existence  of  the  un- 
avoidable dump,  but  owing  to  the  foolish  action  of  the 
philanthropical  neighbors  in  shooting  the  stuff  of  which 
it  is  composed  all  over  the  neighborhood  and  contami- 
nating the  whole  atmosphere  with  that  which,  if 
properly  confined,  can  harm  no  one  but  those  who  wil- 
fully stick  their  nose  into  it.  This  action,  of  course, 
is  exceedingly  foolish.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
circumstance  that  the  other  fellows  are  blunderingly 
increasing  the  nuisance  doesn't  relieve  us  from  the 
odium  attaching  to  that  nuisance,  nor  does  it  absolve  us 
from  the  duty  of  mitigating  the  nuisance,  so  far  as 
human  endeavor  can  mitigate  it.  This,  in  my  humble 
opinion,  gentlemen,  is  our  situation,  and  while  I 
haven't  described  it  in  the  most  savory  of  language,  the 
picture  I  have  given  is  true,  if  not  alluringly  beautiful. 
Now,  what  should  we  do?  Isn't  it  clear  that  we 
ought,  in  the  first  place,  to  close  our  farm-gates  and 
put  up  a  sign  on  our  premises  saying  ,"No  indiscrimi- 
nate dumping  allowed  here"?  To  endeavor  to  keep 
out  the  prohibition  fellows  with  the  pitchforks,  who 


Fallacies  and  a  Moral.  137 

are  stirring  up  the  foul  odor,  without  at  the  same  time 
barring  the  entrance  to  the  riff-raff  from  the  outside, 
that  keeps  shooting  the  rubbish  on  our  lot  which 
creates  the  foul  odor,  is  to  my  mind  an  utterly  sense- 
less proceeding. 

What,  indeed,  have  our  governing  authorities  been 
doing  all  these  years  but  putting  up  double-barred 
gates  around  our  farm  for  this  very  purpose?  Only, 
unfortunately,  they  have  contented  themselves  merely 
with  the  erection  of  the  gates.  The  same  old  riff-raff, 
nothing  daunted,  now  climbs  over  the  gates  and  con- 
tinues depositing  its  evil-smelling  stuff  on  our  ground, 
while  the  authorities  not  only  stand  idly  by  and  let 
things  take  their  course,  but  in  only  too  many  cases 
actually  give  these  fellows  a  leg-up  and  help  them  over 
the  gates.  Our  remonstrances,  meanwhile,  are  met 
with  the  answer:  "Mind  your  own  business.  The 
gates  are  our  property,  and  we  won't  let  you  meddle 
with  them." 

Now,  gentlemen,  we  have  got  to  meddle  with  these 
gates,  for,  if  we  don't,  the  danger  is  that  the  accursed 
dump  will  grow  until  nothing  is  left  of  our  farm  but 
one  gigantic  dump.  To  depart  from  metaphor,  I  be- 
lieve that  our  two  industries,  organized  as  they  are 
to-day  for  defensive  purposes,  should  devote  their 
means  and  their  brains  to  the  correction  or  the  removal 
of  that  which  has  forced  them  into  this  defensive 
attidute.  I  believe  that  the  solution  of  what  is  rather 


138  Fallacies  and  a  Moral. 

ambiguously  styled  the  liquor  question,  must  come,  in 
the  first  instance  at  least,  from  the  liquor  industries 
themselves,  and  from  no  other  source.  But  as  long 
as  we  merely  confine  ourselves  to  resisting  the  applica- 
tion of  the  false  remedies  suggested,  without  offering 
at  least  some  remedial  suggestion  of  our  own,  we  can 
make  no  headway.  Let  our  attitude,  then,  be  assistant 
as  well  as  resistant.  Let  us  interest  ourselves  in  law 
enforcement,  and  above  all  let  us  serve  notice  on  the 
governing  powers  in  unmistakable  terms  that  we 
insist  that  they  shall  do  likewise. 

To  put  the  case  a  little  more  concretely.  The  retail- 
ing of  liquor  in  connection  with  gambling  and  disor- 
derly houses,  and  the  dispensing  of  it  to  drunkards  and 
minors,  is  pretty  universally  admitted  to  be  undesirable. 
Indeed,  I  have  yet  to  meet  a  manufacturer  of  beer 
or  whiskey  who  does  not  emphatically  agree  that  it 
should  be  suppressed,  and  that,  if  it  were  suppressed, 
there  would  be  no  more  so-called  liquor  question,  as 
we  understand  it  to-day.  Well,  the  law  does  forbid  it. 
Then,  why  does  it  still  universally  exist?  Because 
those  charged  with  executing  the  law  don't  execute  it. 
And  what  is  the  inevitable  result?  Simply  that  those 
who  are  willing  and  anxious  to  be  controlled  by  the 
law  are  left  at  the  absolute  mercy  of  those  who  refuse 
to  be  so  controlled.  The  saloonkeeper  is  no  better  than 
most  men,  and  unless  his  actions  and  those  of  his  like 
are  governed  by  law,  they  will  be  governed  each  by  the 


Fallacies  and  a  Moral.  139 

actions  of  his  neighbors,  which  means  by  simple  com- 
mercial or  competitive  expediency.  It  might  be  better 
if  it  were  not  so.  But  it  is  so. 

That  is  the  position  in  a  nutshell,  and  it  is  intensely 
human.  I  believe  it  was  the  late  lamented  prince  of 
American  humorists  who  said,  "Be  good,  and  you  will 
be  lonesome."  And  the  prince  of  American  humorists 
knew  his  country  only  too  well  when  he  coined  this 
immortal  phrase.  Gentlemen,  if  you  can  once  guar- 
antee the  thousands  of  salooonkeepers  of  the  country, 
who  violate  the  law  to-day  merely  because  their  neigh- 
bors are  permitted  to  do  so  with  impunity,  that  if  they 
will  be  good  they  will  not  be  lonesome,  I  venture  to 
say  that  every  man  of  them  will  heave  a  sigh  of  relief 
and  cheerfully  comply  with  all  reasonable  provisions 
of  the  law.  It  is,  in  fact,  this  haunting  dread  of  being 
left  lonesome  in  our  commercial  virtue  that  interferes 
more  than  anything  else  with  the  carrying  out  of  our 
good  intentions.  And  naturally  so.  For  isn't  it  the 
very  aim  and  purpose  of  the  law  to  protect  those  who 
obey  it  from  having  undue  advantage  taken  of  them 
by  those  who  disobey  it?  When  the  law  fails  in  that 
most  important  respect,  it  fails  altogether,  because  it 
thereby  not  only  perpetuates  the  criminality  of  those 
who  are  criminally  inclined,  but  perforce  makes  crimi- 
nals of  those  who,  if  given  a  fair  chance  and  opportun- 
ity, would  rank  among  the  best  and  most  respectable  of 
our  citizens. 


140  Fallacies  and  a  Moral. 

With  all  due  respect,  then,  to  those  among  us  who 
believe  that  some  new  and  better  law  will  give  us  the 
panacea  for  all  of  our  ills,  I  say  that  if  you  enacted 
the  best  law  which  human  brain  could  conceive,  it 
would  but  add  one  more  law  to  the  many  that  are  now 
being  broken,  unless  provision  were  at  the  same  time 
made  to  mend  the  executive  machinery  through  which 
the  power  of  that  law  is  transmitted.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  you  once  succeeded  in  mending  that  defective 
executive  machinery,  no  new  laws  would  be  needed, 
because  the  existing  laws  are  admittedly  more  than 
sufficient  to  provide  that  machinery  with  all  the  power 
it  requires  to  perform  its  functions. 

Gentlemen,  if  I  have  endeavored,  in  a  humble  way, 
to  deal  with  what  I  consider  are  some  of  the  fallacies 
that  obstruct  the  settlement  of  the  much-discussed 
liquor  question,  and  to  deduce  a  moral  from  them,  I 
am  keenly  alive  to  the  fact  that  I  have  left  the  real 
and  crucial  point  at  interest  untouched.  What  the 
public  wants  is  a  remedy;  what  the  government  wants 
is  a  remedy;  and  what  we  want  is  a  remedy.  We  all 
three  know  what  that  remedy  is,  but  each  of  us  is  look- 
ing to  the  other  to  apply  it.  I  say  that  neither  of  the 
three  can  apply  it  without  the  assistance  and  co-opera- 
tion of  at  least  one  of  the  two  others.  Isn't  it  time, 
then,  for  our  united  industries  to  offer  that  assistance 
and  co-operation  in  some  definite  and  tangible  manner? 
If,  for  instance,  the  governing  authorities  of  the 


Fallacies  and  a  Moral.  141 

country  had,  in  addition  to  the  power  vested  in  them, 
our  knowledge  and  experience  of  the  matters  they 
are  attempting  to  regulate,  their  chances  of  success 
would  be  increased  ten-fold.  Likewise,  if  we,  in  addi- 
tion to  our  knowledge  and  experience,  possessed  some 
of  the  power  vested  in  those  authorities,  we,  too,  could 
accomplish  the  desired  result  with  comparative  ease. 
Then  why  not  endeavor  to  bring  about  an  amalga- 
mation of  these  two  forces?  Why  not  work  toward 
uniting  our  expert  knowledge  with  the  power  of  the 
governing  authorities?  I  believe  it  is  this  amalgama- 
tion and  this  union  that  we  should  strive  for,  and  if 
you  gentlemen,  with  your  powerful  organization  behind 
you,  will  put  your  heads  together  to  devise  ways  and 
means  to  this  end,  and  if  the  Brewers'  organization 
will  do  likewise,  we  shall  achieve  what  we  are  all  aiming 
to  achieve,  namely,  regulation  that  will  really  regulate, 
legislation  that  will  really  operate,  and,  above  all, 
the  establishment  of  our  great  industries  in  the  rank 
to  which  they  rightly  belong,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  fore- 
front row  of  those  giant  commercial  pillars  upon  which 
the  greatness  of  our  country  is  reared. 


Address  before  the  Committee  on 
Temperance  of  the  Ohio  House  of 
Representatives  in  Support  of  the 
Dean  Amendment  to  the  Rose 
County  Option  Law. 

Delivered  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Representatives, 
February  9,  1911 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee: 

I  could  scarcely  approach  the  question  which  is 
under  your  consideration  to-night  without  referring  in 
a  few  words  to  the  scandalous  statement  published 
a  few  weeks  ago  by  the  representatives  of  those  who 
oppose  the  measure  before  you,  implying  that,  if  a  ma- 
jority of  votes  should  be  cast  in  favor  of  that  measure, 
this  majority  would  be  accused  of  having  sold  itself 
for  money. 

Being  in  sole  and  undivided  charge  of  the  interests 
against  which  this  slander  is  primarily  directed,  it 
behooves  me,  I  think,  to  express  to  you  my  earnest 
hope  that  every  member  of  the  Legislature,  knowing, 
as  he  must  know,  the  real  purpose  underlying  this 
insidious  threat,  will  treat  it  with  all  the  contempt  it 
deserves.  I  can  conceive  of  no  more  disgraceful 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  143 

method  of  intimidating  the  people's  chosen  representa- 
tives than  that  of  threatening  to  charge  them  with 
corruptibility  unless  their  vote  should  be  recorded  in 
a  certain  prescribed  manner. 

Speaking  for  those  whom  I  represent,  I  may  add 
that  the  worst  and  most  disturbing  feature  of  this  slan- 
der to  us  is  that  it  classes  us  with  the  very  men  who 
gave  sanction  to  its  utterance.  For,  since  there  is 
admittedly  little  difference,  in  degree  of  criminality, 
between  the  act  of  bribery  and  the  act  of  extortion, 
there  can  be  just  as  little  difference  between  the  moral 
turpidity  of  men  who  procure  votes  by  money  and  those 
who  endeavor  to  procure  them  by  libelous  threats. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  coming  to  the  question  at  issue 
to-night,  there  is  one  proposition  bearing  upon  that 
question,  which,  I  think,  must  be  accepted  as  undeni- 
ably true  by  every  unbiased  man.  This  proposition 
is  that  the  Rose  County  Option  law,  which  the  bill 
now  under  your  consideration  seeks  to  amend,  was 
not  framed  to  give  the  people  in  the  country  districts 
what  they  wanted  or  needed;  there  were  already  laws 
enough  on  the  statute  books,  prior  to  the  passage  of 
the  Rose  law,  providing  for  all  the  wants  and  needs 
of  the  country  folk  in  regard  to  the  retention  or  non- 
retention  of  the  saloon  in  their  midst.  The  Rose  law 
was  notoriously  framed  for  the  purpose  of  forcing  upon 
the  people  in  the  cities  what  they  did  not  want,  and 
what  they  had  already  repudiated.  In  other  words, 


144  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

the  people  in  the  cities  had  declined  the  means  of  sal- 
vation offered  them  in  the  Township,  the  Municipal 
and  the  Residence  District  acts,  and  they  were  there- 
fore to  have  salvation  forced  upon  them  at  the  sword's 
point  in  the  shape  of  the  Rose  County  Option  law. 

Unfortunately,  salvation  by  brute  force  has  never 
proved  successful,  and  it  never  will.  The  history  of 
the  operation  of  the  Rose  law  is  merely  another  in- 
stance in  proof  of  this  fact.  In  the  eyes  of  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League,  of  course,  the  effect  of  this  law  has 
been  one  of  phenomenal  success.  All  the  laws  which 
this  organization  has  been  instrumental  in  placing  on 
the  statute  books  have  in  its  eyes  been  eminently  suc- 
cessful. Why,  gentlemen,  it  is  the  boast  of  this  league 
that  in  the  past  thirteen  years  it  has  succeeded  in  plac- 
ing more  than  one-half  of  the  entire  territory  of  the 
United  States  under  the  prohibition  ban.  Forty-five 
million  of  the  free  citizens  of  this  country  have  had 
the  eleventh  commandment,  formulated  by  the  prohi- 
bitionist, imposed  upon  them:  "Thou  shalt  not  drink." 
Phenomenal  success,  in  very  truth — so  far  as  it  goes. 
The  only  trouble  with  the  prohibitionist  is  that  he  is 
utterly  incapable  of  realizing  the  difference  between 
driving  a  horse  to  the  water-trough  and  making  it 
drink.  Forty-five  million  of  the  population  of  this 
country  live  in  territory  which  the  prohibitionist,  at 
terrific  expense  to  the  community  at  large,  has  suc- 
ceeded in  making  "dry."  Would  you  not  imagine  that, 


Hose  County  Option  Law.  145 

if  this  "success"  meant  what  it  purports  to  mean,  its 
effect  upon  the  consumption  of  alcoholic  beverages  in 
the  United  States  must  have  been  almost  annihilating? 
Our  friends  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League  carefully  re- 
frain from  telling  you  what  that  effect  has  really  been. 
But  the  United  States  revenue  authorities  do  tell  it, 
and  what  they  say  is  that  in  these  same  thirteen  years 
of  the  glorious  reign  of  prohibition .  the  per  capita 
consumption  of  whiskey  in  the  entire  country  has  in- 
creased over  fifty  per  cent  and  the  per  capita  consump- 
tion of  beer  has  increased  forty-six  per  cent.  Inci- 
dentally, then,  thanks  to  the  "success"  of  prohibition, 
forty-five  million  of  the  population  of  the  country  are 
to-day  drinking  illegally  half  as  much  again  of  that 
which  they  formerly  drank  legally.  Or,  rather — to  be 
quite  accurate — since  the  greater  half  of  these  forty- 
five  million  people  must  have  voted  for  prohibition, 
we  have  to  assume,  either  that  the  smaller  half  of  them 
are  drinking  several  times  as  much  as  they  drank 
before,  or  that  the  greater  half,  who  voted  to  abolish 
drink,  are  hypocritically  helping  them  to  consume  that 
fearful  excess. 

It  has  become  customary  to  laugh  at  these  facts,  as 
if  they  were  a  joke.  But  in  reality  they  are  terrible 
facts,  terrible  in  what  they  imply  in  the  immediate 
present,  and  terrible  in  what  they  import  for  the  more 
distant  future.  They  embody  the  sum  and  substance 
of  all  the  immorality,  all  the  dishonesty,  and  all  the 


146  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

hypocrisy  which  the  prohibition  law  is  breeding 
throughout  our  fair  and  free  land.  They  prove  that 
it  is  not  making  bad  men  better,  but  is  making  good 
men  worse.  They  prove  that,  like  misapplied  charity, 
prohibition  is  not  relieving  those  who  require  relief, 
but  is  addiing  to  the  number  of  those  who  need  that 
relief. 

These  facts  are  of  a  general  nature,  Mr.  Chairman, 
but  I  have  dwelt  upon  them  for  a  purpose.  The  Anti- 
Saloon  League  relies,  in  making  good  its  case,  mainly 
upon  statistics.  But,  if  the  directing  heads  of  this 
organization  went  on  a  quest  from  the  North  Pole  to 
the  South  Pole,  they  could  not  find  allies  more  un- 
friendly to  their  cause  than  these  self -same  statistics. 
What  is  worse  for  them,  perhaps,  than  the  statistics 
themselves  is  the  incautious  way  in  which  they  use 
them.  Were  we  not  gravely  presented  by  one  of  their 
speakers  at  the  public  hearing  on  this  very  measure  a 
year  ago  in  the  Senate  Chamber  with  a  document  pur- 
porting to  emanate  from  the  business  men  of  a  certain 
city  of  this  State,  in  which  among  others  even  physi- 
cians and  undertakers  testified  to  their  greatly  in- 
creased prosperity  since  that  city  had  gone  "dry"? 
Think  of  it!  Physicians  and  undertakers  waxing  fat 
under  Anti- Saloon  League  rule,  and  this  testimony  is 
gravely  produced  by  the  Anti- Saloon  League  itself. 

Of  course,  the  fact  sounds  ridiculous  on  the  face  of 
it.  And  yet  this  was  perhaps  the  truest  statement  ever 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  U7 

made  by  the  Anti- Saloon  League.  I  have  here  the 
copy  of  a  letter  addressed  to  ex-Senator  Duval  by 
Judge  Edward  E.  Corn,  of  Lawrence  County,  himself 
an  uncompromising  prohibitionist,  which  explains  far 
better  and  far  more  graphically  than  I  could  why  it  is 
that  physicians  and  undertakers  appear  to  thrive  so 
greatly  under  so-called  "dry"  conditions.  This  is 
what  Judge  Corn  writes  to  Senator  Duval,  and  what 
neither  the  honorable  Senator  nor  his  supporters  of 
the  Anti- Saloon  League  have  been  in  a  hurry  to 
publish : 

"I  have  been  holding  courts  regularly  in  two  coun- 
ties, Adams  and  Lawrence.  As  I  came  home  last 
Saturday  from  Adams  County  I  saw  sights  that  were 
revolting,  sickening  and  disgusting.  Manchester,  Ohio, 
is  in  dry  territory;  Maysville,  Kentucky,  twelve  miles 
away,  is  wet  territory.  When  I  was  taking  the  train 
at  Manchester  for  home  I  saw  at  least  fifty  persons 
alight  from  that  train  drunk,  loaded  down  with  whis- 
key in  their  pockets  and  in  baskets,  many  of  whom  were 
mere  boys,  reeling,  staggering,  and  yelling  in  their 
childish  piping  voices.  Ironton,  Ohio,  in  dry  territory, 
is  but  ten  miles  by  street  car  from  Catlettsburg,  Ken- 
tucky, which  is  wet,  and  but  four  miles  from  Ashland, 
Kentucky,  which  is  supposed  to  be  dry,  but  where 
whiskey  and  beer  are  both  sold  the  same  as  when  the 
saloons  were  allowed,  and  the  same  conditions  exist 
here  that  I  have  described  as  existing  at  Manchester 
in  Adams  County. 


148  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

"Besides,  *  *  *  men  who  heretofore  were  in 
the  habit  of  taking  one  drink  now  buy  whiskey  in  large 
quantities  and  keep  it  in  their  homes  and  drink  much 
more  than  heretofore." 

Pray,  what  will  you  make  of  this  testimony  of  Judge 
Edward  E.  Corn,  the  prohibitionist,  which  is  surely  not 
biased  in  favor  of  the  wet  side?  Is  it  a  corroboration, 
or  is  it  a  refutation,  of  the  testimony  I  previously  al- 
luded to,  alleging  the  conditions  in  dry  counties  to  be 
so  greatly  improved  that  even  physicians  and  under- 
takers are  thriving  under  them?  In  whichever  way 
you  may  elect  to  accept  it,  the  result  reflects  anything 
but  a  flattering  light  upon  the  reasoning  faculties  of 
our  friends  of  the  Anti- Saloon  League. 

Nor  is  this  example  of  their  logic  by  any  means  a 
solitary  one  of  its  kind.  In  a  recent  article  published 
in  Pearson's  Magazine,  we  are  assured  that  a  certain 
State  has  shown  material  progress  since  the  enactment 
of  a  prohibitory  law,  from  which  fact,  the  writer  says, 
it  is  fair  to  assume  that  such  law  has  not  retarded  that 
progress,  and  may  have  been  a  factor  in  stimulating  it. 
Yet,  immediately  following  that  statement,  and  the 
conclusion  deduced  from  it,  we  learn  from  the  same 
writer,  as  a  certain  fact,  and  not  as  an  assumption, 
that,  in  spite  of  the  prohibitory  law,  enormous  quanti- 
ties of  worse  liquors  are  sold  and  consumed  in  that 
State  than  were  sold  and  consumed  there  before.  Ap- 
ply to  these  two  statements  the  simplest  rule  of  logic, 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  149 

and  we  are  left  to  draw  from  them  the  inevitable  and 
absurd  conclusion  that  the  worse  the  conditions  of  the 
liquor  traffic  become,  owing  to  the  peculiar  operation 
(or,  must  we  say,  non-operation?)  of  the  prohibition 
law,  the  greater  the  business  prosperity  of  the  State 
in  which  that  law  operates,  or  fails  to  operate,  is 
likely  to  be. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  could  fill  hours  in  citing  similar 
instances  of  the  unfortunate  contradictions  in  which 
the  so-called  statistics  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League 
abound.  And  is  it  from  obvious  absurdities  like  these 
that  the  efficacy  of  la,ws  affecting  the  welfare  of  mil- 
lions of  people  is  to  be  reasoned?  Compare  for  a 
moment  Judge  Corn's  solemn  recital  of  the  frightful 
conditions  existing  in  the  dry  counties  of  Adams  and 
Lawrence  with  the  assertions  of  his  fellow  Anti- Saloon 
Leaguers  regarding  the  criminal  statistics  in  the  dry 
counties  of  Ohio.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  a  leading 
prohibitionist  testifying,  of  his  own  experience,  to  the 
shocking  increase  of  drunkenness  in  those  counties, 
and  on  the  other  hand  we  were  presented  a  year  ago 
with  Anti- Saloon  League  statistics  alleging  that  the 
convictions  for  crime  are  decreasing  there. 

Here  again,  you  see,  we  are  confronted  with  the 
necessity  of  accepting  the  two  statements  either  as 
corroborative  or  as  contradictory  of  one  another.  If 
be  false.  If  they  are  corroborative — in  other  words,  if 
crime  really  does  decrease  where  drunkenness  in- 


150  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

creases — we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  sober 
people  are  more  liable  to  commit  crimes  than  drunken 
people.  And  if  so,  what  becomes  of  the  stock  argu- 
ment of  the  prohibitionists  that  drink  is  the  cause  of 
ninety  per  cent  of  all  the  crimes  committed? 

The  absurdity  of  the  contradiction  is  too  palpable 
to  need  comment.  The  fact  is,  as  anyone  can  verify 
who  cares  to  investigate  the  official  records  of  the  dry 
counties  in  Ohio,  as  we  have  been  at  the  pains  of 
doing,  that,  while  there  is,  unfortunately,  a  decrease 
in  the  convictions  for  crime  in  dry  counties,  the  indict- 
ments for  crime  there,  as  evidenced  by  the  grand  jury 
records,  shows  a  notable  increase.  The  Anti- Saloon 
League  statistician  conveniently  omits  to  mention  this 
significant  fact.  Yet  what  conclusion  does  this  ominous 
discrepancy  between  indictments  for  crime  and  convic- 
tions for  crime  in  dry  counties  lead  to?  Why,  gentle- 
men, isn't  it  superabundantly  clear  that  it  is  more 
difficult  to  convict  criminals  in  dry  counties  than  it  is 
to  convict  them  in  wet  counties?  Query:  Why?  Of 
course,  the  conditions  in  Newark  and  a  hundred  other 
so-called  dry  cities  in  the  country  supply  the  all- 
sufficient  answer.  But  I  will  present  the  puzzle,  in  all 
its  virginity,  to  the  Anti- Saloon  League,  as  an  addi- 
tion to  the  many  other  statistical  puzzles  of  a  similar 
nature,  of  which  its  archives  are  full. 

In  short,  the  truth  is,  to  be  perfectly  plain,  that 
rarely  in  the  history  of  mankind  has  such  deliberate 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  151 

exaggeration,  or  such  deliberate  deception,  not  to  use 
stronger  terms,  been  resorted  to  by  the  advocates  of 
any  theory  than  has  been  and  is  still  being  resorted  to 
by  those  who  are  seeking  to  destroy  the  liquor  traffic. 
To  inveigh  against  that  traffic,  and  indiscriminately  re- 
vile and  libel  those  who  are  engaged  in  it  is  nowadays 
the  cheapest  and  most  claptrap,  though,  I  am  informed, 
not  the  least  remunerative  method  of  obtaining  plat- 
form fame.  And  meanwhile  many  of  the  most  rabid 
of  these  so-called  crusaders  are  the  same  men  who  help 
to  make  the  deplorable  farce  which  we  know  is  made  of 
the  very  laws  they  are  instrumental,  by  their  votes  and 
otherwise,  in  passing. 

I  am  not  overstating  the  case  when  I  make  this 
assertion.  It  is  a  matter  of  the  commonest  knowledge 
that  thousands  of  the  very  men  who,  three  years  ago, 
for  political,  commercial,  or  other  selfish  reasons, 
made  an  outward  show  of  assisting  to  enact  the  Rose 
County  Option  law  have  since  been  found  among  those 
who  are  treating  that  law  with  scorn  and  contempt. 
And  what  is  such  a  law  but  a  demoralizing  farce,  when 
those  who  publicly  pretend  to  clamor  for  it  scoff  at  it 
and  deride  it  in  private?  Why,  all  the  police  and  all 
the  detectives  in  the  universe  are  not  sufficient  in  num- 
ber to  enforce  such  a  law. 

This  fact,  indeed,  was  unwittingly  conceded  in  the 
Senate  Chamber  a  year  ago  by  the  chief  spokesman 
of  the  Anti- Saloon  League,  Judge  Blair.  Speaking 


152  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

on  that  occasion  against  the  proposed  amendment  of 
the  Rose  law,  he  said,  in  answer  to  my  assertion  that 
the  law  cannot  be  enforced:  "Give  the  rural  folks  a 
chance  at  it,  and  they  will  enforce  it."  (In  the  cities, 
of  course!)  There  you  have  it.  In  those  very  words 
he  admits  that  one-half  of  the  people  is  required  to 
enforce  the  law  against  the  other  half.  I  say  to  you, 
gentlemen,  and  I  challenge  any  one  versed  in  the 
history  of  law  to  controvert  the  statement,  that  a  law 
which  requires  one-half  of  the  population  to  police 
the  other  half  is  a  bad  law  and  an  absurd  law.  I  say 
that  a  law — and  I  now  speak  generally — which  im- 
poses the  commandment,  "Thou  shalt  not  drink,"  upon 
forty-five  million  people,  with  the  result  that  those 
forty-five  million  people  drink  half  as  much  again,  or 
several  times  as  much,  as  they  drank  before,  stands 
self-condemned  as  a  bad  law  and  an  absurd  law.  I  say 
that  a  law  which  is  notoriously  violated  and  secretly 
held  in  contempt  by  many  of  the  very  people  who 
hypocritically  voted  for  it  is  a  bad  law  and  an  absurd 
law. 

I  yield  to  no  one  in  my  sense  of  respect  for  law. 
But  I  submit,  with  all  due  deference  to  the  exalted 
station  of  those  who  make  our  laws,  that  what  is 
known  as  the  majesty  of  the  law  is  not  conferred  upon 
the  laws  by  the  legislatures  which  enact  them,  but  by 
the  mass  of  the  people  who  approve  and  ratify  and 
obey  them. 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  153 

Now,  it  is  true,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the  function  of 
the  legislator  ceases  with  the  passage  of  such  statutes 
as,  in  his  wisdom,  he  deems  it  proper  to  enact.  But  I 
respectfully  submit  that  his  responsibility  does  not 
end  there.  Laws  are  made,  not  for  the  benefit  of  some 
of  the  people,  but  for  the  benefit  of  all  of  the  people, 
and  if  they  prove  defective  in  this  vital  particular,  it 
devolves  upon  the  legislator  to  remedy  that  defect. 
I  have  nothing  to  say  against  local  option.  What  I 
assert  is  that  county  option  is  not  local  option.  What 
I  assert  is  that  county  option  is  a  failure,  and  must  of 
necessity  be  a  failure,  if  only  for  the  reason  that  the 
machinery  to  execute  the  law  it  imposes  upon  unwilling 
communities  is  in  the  hands  of  those  very  communities 
that  resent  it.  Unless,  therefore,  you  deprive  your 
municipalities  of  the  right  to  elect  their  own  executive 
authorities  and  transfer  that  right  to  the  county  as  a 
whole,  the  county  as  a  whole,  by  howsoever  large  a 
majority  it  may  impose  prohibitory  laws  upon  the 
municipalities,  can  never  make  such  laws  effective 
where  the  majority  of  the  citizens  in  those  municipali- 
ties object  to  them. 

Stop  to  consider  what  the  inevitable  consequence 
must  be  of  disregarding  this  self-evident  truth.  Hasn't 
that  consequence  been  exemplified  ad  nauseam  by  the 
operation  of  the  Rose  law? 

Gentlemen,  we  have  heard  much  of  the  frightful 
occurrence  in  Newark.  The  picture  invariably  drawn 


154  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

of  the  conditions  leading  to  that  occurrence  has  been 
that  of  a  community  terrorized  by  a  comparatively 
small  tough  element,  of  a  city  administration  con- 
trolled by  that  tough  element,  and  of  municipal  officials 
so  unmindful  of  their  sacred  oath  of  office  that  they 
aided  and  abetted  these  law  violators.  The  picture,  of 
course,  is  partly  true,  but  few,  even  of  those  who  fully 
realize  that  it  presents  only  one-half  of  the  truth, 
have  had  the  courage  to  come  forward  and  point  out 
the  other  and  more  important  half  of  the  truth. 

And  why?  Because  they,  too,  are  terrorized  by  a 
certain  element  of  our  citizenship,  who  are  known  to 
visit  their  vindictive  wrath  upon  all  and  any  -  who 
venture  to  question  the  wisdom  and  expediency  of  their 
coercive  methods  of  government.  If  it  be  true  that 
the  tough  element  of  the  community  controlled  the 
administrative  officials  of  Newark,  has  it  occurred  to 
you  to  ask  who  elected  those  officials  ?  Was  it  the 
tough  element  of  the  community  alone?  If  so,  then 
more  than  half  of  Newark's  citizenship  must  belong 
to  the  tough  element,  for  it  was  a  majority  of  that 
citizenship  which  elected  those  worthless  officials. 

Now,  God  forbid  that  we  should  cast  such  a  slur 
upon  the  fair  name  of  Newark.  The  truth  is  that  in 
Newark,  as  in  most  other  cities  that  have  gone  "dry" 
against  the  expressed  will  of  large  majorities  of  their 
citizens,  a  candidate  for  municipal  office,  who  would 
manifest  his  intention  to  enforce  the  much-hated  Rose 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  155 

law,  would  not  have  the  slightest  chance  of  being 
elected.  In  other  words,  it  is  tacitly  understood  by 
the  people  that,  if  elected,  he  will  disregard  his  oath 
in  this  one  particular. 

Shocking,  of  course.  Unutterably  shocking,  if  you 
like.  But  true.  And  not  merely  theoretically,  tech- 
nically true,  but  practically,  logically,  humanly  true. 
Can  you  then  reasonably  expect  an  efficient,  not  to 
speak  of  a  decent,  administration  in  any  such  city  under 
these  circumstances? 

There,  Mr.  Chairman,  lies  the  true  origin  of  the 
awful  calamity  in  Newark.  The  Rose  law — and  the 
Rose  law  alone — was  the  irritant  cause  of  the  frightful 
conditions  which  prevailed  there  prior  to  that  calam- 
ity, as  they  notoriously  prevail  to-day  in  more  or  less 
every  so-called  dry  city  in  the  country.  The  Rose  law 
has  driven  out  the  respectable  administration  and  sub- 
stituted for  it  the  pliable,  conscienceless  executives 
such  as  have  made  Newark  a  by-word  among  the  cities 
of  Ohio.  It  has  destroyed  the  police-controlled  saloon, 
which  the  people  demand,  and,  instead  of  the  legiti- 
mate, taxpaying  saloonkeeper,  who  can  be  made  an- 
swerable to  a  self-respecting  city  government,  it  has 
invited  all  the  criminal  scum  from  within  and  without 
to  join  hands  with  a  complaisant  •  administration  in 
defrauding  the  helpless  community  of  the  last  vestige 
of  respectability  which  the  Rose  law  has  left  it.  It  has 
impoverished  the  community,  it  has  corrupted  the 


156  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

grown  citizens,  and  is  fast  debauching  those  who  are 
young. 

This  is  not  an  eoc  parte  statement.  No  sane  man,  of 
course,  can  doubt  the  honesty  and  sincerity  of  the 
many  estimable  people  who,  in  these  enlightened  days 
of  our  twentieth  century,  have  adopted  the  strange 
belief  that  legislation  can  take  the  place  and  do  the 
work  of  education.  They  are,  unhappily,  blind  to  the 
great  harm  they  are  doing.  But  their  so-called  leaders, 
who  have  deluded  them  into  this  belief — the  men  who 
are  living  and  growing  fat  on  the  credulity  of  these 
good  people,  and  who,  turning  philanthropy  into  a 
lucrative  profession,  have  made  themselves  responsible 
for  the  laws  that  have  resulted  in  the  deplorable  condi- 
tion of  affairs  I  have  described — they  fully  recognize 
the  colossal  era  of  crime  they  have  been  instrumental 
in  bringing  about.  Indeed,  they  not  only  admit  it, 
but,  if  the  English  language  means  what  it  says,  they 
would  actually  seem  to  glory  in  it.  A  leading  Anti- 
Saloon  League  advocate  and  a  high  dignitary  of  one 
of  the  greatest  sectarian  churches  in  America,  numer- 
ically speaking,  in  referring  recently  to  what  he  some- 
what flippantly  described  as  "that  little  custom  they 
have  of  bootlegging"  in  his  dry  State,  exclaimed  from 
the  public  platform,  "Rather  a  million  bootleggers 
than  one  open  saloon." 

Think  of  the  meaning  of  this  inexpressibly  foolish 
utterance.  We  will,  it  says,  rather  be  instrumental  in 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  157 

causing  the  existence  of  criminals  by  the  million  than 
permit  one  man  to  do  lawfully  what,  in  our  individual 
wisdom,  we  see  fit  to  frown  upon.  Is  that  morality? 
Is  that  Christianity?  Is  it  common  sense?  Are  such 
people  as  these  to  continue  dictating  the  laws  that  are 
to  govern  mankind?  They  admit  almost  brazenly  that 
their  purpose  is  not  to  benefit  individual  humanity, 
but  merely  to  enforce  a  particular  dogma  of  their  own, 
even  if  it  be  at  the  sacrifice  of  they  don't  care  how 
many  million  human  souls.  In  other  words,  they  sayi 
"What  does  it  concern  us  how  much  moral  damage  a 
law  does,  provided  that  law  conforms  with  what,  in 
our  peculiar  view  and  in  our  peculiar  faith,  we  consider 
the  law  should  be." 

Newark  and  hundreds  of  other  cities  of  our  country 
afford  heartrending  examples  of  the  consequences  of 
this  fanatical  philosophy,  or  doctrine,  or  creed,  or 
whatever  other  name  may  more  fitly  describe  it.  It  is 
the  lamentable  condition  which  it  has  brought  about  in 
our  own  State  that  we  are  asking  you  to  remedy,  and 
you  can  remedy  it  in  no  other  way  than  by  restoring 
to  the  municipalities  of  Ohio  that  democratic  right  of 
self-government  in  purely  local  affairs  which  the  Rose 
law  has  wrongfully  deprived  them  of. 

Some  of  our  friends  on  the  other  side  of  the  house, 
seeing  the  trend  which  public  opinion  is  taking  on  this 
question,  are  now  endeavoring  to  hide  behind  the  con- 
stitutional convention,  though  they  know  full  well  that 


158  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

the  deliberations  of  that  convention  can  have  no  bear- 
ing whatsoever  on  the  Rose  law,  or  any  other  similar 
law,  but  will  be  concerned  with  purely  constitutional 
questions.  Others  again  are  anxiously  suggesting 
that  you  should  wait  until  the  counties  that  went  "dry" 
after  the  passage  of  the  Rose  law  shall  have  had  an 
opportunity  to  vote  on  the  same  question  again. 

This  suggestion  is  on  a  par  with  most  suggestions 
that  come  from  that  side.  It  is  proof  of  one  of  two 
things:  Either  of  a  most  deplorable  ignorance  of  the 
true  question  at  issue,  or  of  a  wilful  attempt  to  deceive 
you  and  the  public  of  the  real  nature  of  that  issue. 

Why,  gentlemen,  no  one  denies  the  poWer  of  the 
county  to  vote  the  cities  "dry"  against  their  will.  That 
power  is  the  whole  gist  of  the  present  controversy. 
That  power,  in  fact,  which  no  one  questions,  was  the 
sole  reason  for  the  passage  of  the  Rose  law,  which  is 
admittedly  not  a  law  providing  government  by  the 
people  for  the  people,  but  a  law  providing  government 
by  one  class  of  the  people  for  another  class  of  the 
people.  The  question,  therefore,  is  not  whether  the 
county  shall  be  able  once  more  to  exercise  the  power 
vested  in  it  to  interfere  in  the  local  administration  of 
the  cities,  but  rather  whether  the  county  shall  be  shorn 
of  that  power  before  it  has  an  opportunity  to  exercise 
it  again,  with  a  repetition  of  all  the  shocking  conse- 
quences from  which  so  many  of  our  cities  are  now 
suffering. 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  159 

I  beg  to  emphasize  that  I  speak  here  as  a  represen- 
tative of  the  brewing  industry.  But  in  doing  so,  I  ask 
you  to  bear  in  mind  that  this  is  not  a  conflict  between 
the  so-called  liquor  interests  and  the  people  as  a  whole, 
as  the  Anti- Saloon  League  is  so  fond  of  pretending. 
If  any  belief  in  this  disingenuous  contention  existed 
a  few  months  ago,  surely  the  astounding  result  of  the 
recent  elections  throughout  the  country  has  conclu- 
sively proved  its  fallacy,  to  use  the  mildest  term  I  can 
think  of  to  characterize  it. 

Believe  me,  you  are  not  confronted  with  a  mere 
struggle  of  the  saloon  for  its  existence.  You  are  con- 
fronted with  a  struggle  for  that  existence  on  the  part 
of  the  people  who  want  the  saloon  and  the  pleasures 
and  the  legitimate  recreation  it  affords  them. 

What,  indeed,  would  the  saloonkeeper  amount  to  in 
this  struggle,  if  he  stood  alone  and  had  not  the  people 
behind  him,  who  have  the  want  and  the  desire  for  that 
which  he  supplies?  Why,  he  would  be  brushed  aside 
like  a  feather.  Without  the  demand  for  the  saloon 
in  a  community  no  saloon  could  exist  there  for  one 
solitary  hour.  And  mark  you  further,  it  is  not  the 
saloon  that  makes  the  people  of  a  community  what 
they  are ;  it  is  the  people  of  a  community  that  make  the 
saloon  in  that  community  what  it  is.  In  other  words, 
it  is  not  the  saloon  that  makes  the  character  of  the  man 
who  frequents  it ;  it  is  the  man  who  makes  the  character 
of  the  saloon  he  frequents.  As  long  as  there  are  bad 


160  Rose  County  Option  Law. 

people  there  are  likely  to  be  bad  saloons.  The  dives 
and  joints  which  abound  in  every  "dry"  town  or  dis- 
trict are  only  too  conclusive  proof  of  this.  Our  teachers 
and  preachers,  therefore,  upon  whose  efforts  the  ad- 
vancement and  the  betterment  of  mankind  depends, 
should  devote  their  energies  to  the  conversion  and 
redemption  of  the  delinquent  citizen,  who  creates  the 
bad  saloon,  rather  than  waste  those  energies  in  futile 
attempts  to  cure  his  delinquency  by  merely  destroying 
that  which  he  creates. 

Permit  me  to  say  this  in  conclusion,  Mr.  Chairman: 
If  the  brewing  industry  of  this  State,  which  I  have 
the  honor  to  represent  to-night,  and  which  I  am  proud 
to  represent,  joins  in  the  appeal  of  the  cities  to  you  for 
this  relief,  to  which  they  are  clearly  entitled,  it  is  not 
because  the  members  of  that  industry  set  mere  business 
considerations  above  considerations  of  morality  or 
public  expediency,  but,  on  the  contrary,  because  those 
very  business  considerations  and  the  considerations  of 
morality  and  public  expediency  are  identical.  The 
brewer  knows,  what  the  United  States  revenue  figures 
so  abundantly  prove,  that  his  product  will  continue  to 
be  consumed  by  the  millions  and  millions  of  men  who 
demand  it  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  those  misguided 
amateur  humanitarians  who  are  vainly  endeavoring 
to  destroy  that  demand  by  degrading  the  channels 
through  which  it  is  supplied.  But  the  brewer  is  as 
much  concerned  in  seeing  that  his  product  shall  reach 


Rose  County  Option  Law.  16L 

the  consumer  through  respectable  and  well-regulated 
channels  as  the  consumer  himself  is  concerned  in  obtain- 
ing that  product  through  such  channels.  This  is  the 
fundamental  interest  we  have  in  the  question  before 
you,  and  we  trust  that,  however  insignificant  this  inter- 
est in  itself  may  appear  to  you,  you  will,  in  your  wis- 
dom, give  due  weight  to  those  broader  considerations 
which  touch,  not  only  the  brewing  industry,  but  the  com- 
munity at  large,  and  which  I  have  endeavored  to-night 
to  the  best  of  my  ability  to  lay  before  you. 


Opening  Address  Delivered  before  the 
Second  International  Brewers'  Con- 
gress, Chicago,  October  18,  1911 

If  there  is  one  fact  that  impresses  me  more  deeply 
than  any  other  in  connection  with  the  honor  that  has 
fallen  to  me  of  presiding  over  this  Second  Interna- 
tional Brewers'  Congress,  it  is  that  the  magnificent 
assembly  which  I  am  thus  privileged  to  address  from 
this  chair  is  representative  of  one  of  the  most  ancient 
industries,  if  not  perhaps  the  most  ancient  industry, 
in  the  world.  The  manufacture  of  fermented  bever- 
ages can  be  traced  back  to  the  very  dawn  of  history, 
its  origin,  in  fact,  being  lost  in  those  remote  ages  of 
which  no  records  have  been  handed  down  to  us.  It  is 
likely,  moreover,  to  continue  to  live  and  flourish  as  long 
as  the  human  race  lasts,  unless,  indeed,  the  tastes  and 
desires  of  man  should  undergo  a  very  radical  change, 
or  unless  perchance  Nature  herself  should  one  day  be 
compelled  to  confine  her  processes  to  only  such  as  meet 
the  approval  of  certain  modern  individuals,  whose 
stupendous  faculty  of  discerning  the  good  in  them- 
selves and  the  evil  in  others  renders  it  almost  regret- 
table that  the  Creator  should  have  failed  to  foresee 
and  take  cognizance  of  their  superior  wisdom  and 


Brewers'  Congress.  163 

understanding  of  things  when  he  made  our  world,  a 
failure  on  His  part  which  I  verily  believe  they  in  their 
secret  hearts  hold  against  Him.  If  pedigree,  therefore, 
still  counts  for  anything  in  these-  days  of  ultra-radical- 
ism, we  may  reckon  ourselves  as  belonging  in  the  very 
forefront  rank  of  the  manufacturing  industries  of 
the  world. 

But,  while  we  may,  justly  perhaps,  pride  ourselves  on 
this  fact,  let  us  not  forget,  on  the  other  hand,  that  pre- 
eminence of  any  kind,  whether  of  position,  or  rank,  or 
wealth,  or  mere  human  influence,  brings  with  it  corre- 
spondingly great  responsibilities,  and  it  is  these  respon- 
sibilities, and  the  best  and  most  effective  method  of 
properly  meeting  them,  which  should  form,  in  my 
humble  opinion,  the  most  important  subject  for  dis- 
cussion and  deliberation  at  such  a  Congress  as  this. 

You  will  pardon  me,  therefore,  if  I  pass  by  the  more 
technical  questions  pertaining  to  our  industry  in  its 
inner  workings,  which  will  receive  your  due  attention 
in  the  various  sections  devoted  to  them,  and  confine 
myself,  in  the  few  remarks  I  am  privileged  to  address 
to  you,  preparatory  to  declaring  this  Congress  open 
for  business,  to  the  purely  sociological  aspects  of 
our  trade. 

To  do  this  without  touching  upon  what  is  known  in 
most  occidental  countries  to-day  as  the  Temperance 
movement  would  be  very  much  like  attempting  to  dis- 
cuss the  play  of  Hamlet  without  reference  to  the  titular 


164  Brewers'  Congress. 

hero  of  that  drama  himself.  Now,  strangely  enough, 
there  prevails  at  this  day  in  the  minds  of  many  good 
and  worthy  people  the  notion  that  temperance  is  the 
natural  enemy  of  the  -manufacturer  of  alcoholic  bever- 
ages, and  the  manufacturer  of  alcoholic  beverages  is, 
by  consequence,  the  natural  enemy  of  temperance. 
Whence  this  notion  arises  I  do  not  know,  unless  it  be 
from  a  widespread  misconception  of  the  true  meaning 
of  the  term  temperance;  for,  truly,  if  there  is  anything 
that  can  remotely  compare  with  the  indiscriminate 
abuse  heaped  upon  the  manufacturer  of  alcoholic  bev- 
erages in  these  regenerate  days,  it  is  the  shocking  abuse 
to  which  the  word  temperance  is  subjected  by  many 
of  its  soi-disant  votaries.  It  is  strange  that  this  should 
be  so,  but  it'  is  so,  and  perhaps  no  country  affords  a 
more  striking  illustration  of  the  fact  than  our  United 
States. 

Here,  unfortunately,  the  so-called  temperance  move- 
ment has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  most  intemperate 
people  in  the  nation,  men  suffering  from  what  I  can 
only  describe  as  chronic  moral  inebriation,  men  utterly 
devoid  of  reasoning  powers,  largely  lacking  in  even 
the  most  elementary  knowledge  and  education,  and, 
worse  than  all,  in  only  too  many  cases  prompted  solely 
by  the  commercial  benefits  they  derive  from  the  cause 
they  make  a  profession  of  championing. 

I  am  not  speaking  at  random  when  I  make  this  state- 
ment. I  have  stood  on  platforms  at  public  hearings 


Brewers'  Congress.  165 

before  legislative  bodies  in  debate  with  some  of  their 
choicest  orators,  listening  to  their  illogical  rantings, 
hearing  their  fierce  and  indiscriminate  denunciation 
and  defamation  of  everybody  whose  opinion  differs 
from  theirs,  noting  the  invariable  absence  of  truth  and 
honesty  and  Christian  charity  in  their  utterances,  and 
the  almost  incredible  spirit  of  self-righteousness  and 
the  overbearing  arrogance  of  superiority  with  which 
they  cover  their  lack  of  reason  and  argument,  and  I 
have  marveled  again  and  again  that  the  leader- 
ship of  a  movement  so  noble  in  its  initial  purpose, 
so  eloquent  in  its  appeal  to  the  better  qualities  of 
man,  should  have  been  permitted  to  devolve  upon  in- 
dividuals of  this  calibre,  competent  in  nothing  but  the 
faculty  of  arousing  the  unreasoning  passions  of  an 
emotional  multitude  and  molding  them  to  their  own, 
partly  fanatical,  partly  political  purposes.  These 
people  have  succeeded  in  driving  hundreds,  if  not 
thousands,  of  respectable  and  decent  men  out  of  the 
retail  trade  in  this  country.  But  they  have  never 
closed  a  dive  or  disreputable  resort  in  their  lives.  On 
the  contrary,  they  have  created  and  are  creating  them 
by  the  hundreds  and  the  thousands. 

And  there  is  something,  if  possible,  even  worse  than 
this.  For,  if  the  end  they  attain  is  pernicious,  the 
means  they  adopt  to  reach  it  are  far  more  so.  I  need 
only  point,  among  other  notorious  frauds  and  decep- 
tions practiced  by  these  people,  to  the  glaring  false- 


166  Brewers'  Congress. 

hoods  disseminated  by  them  in  school  textbooks  on  the 
subject  of  alcohol,  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of 
deceiving  young  children  as  to  the  scientific  facts  bear- 
ing thereon.  You  probably  all  know  how,  figurately 
speaking,  a  small  grain  of  truth  is  cunningly  mixed 
there  with  a  whole  bushel  of  bare-faced  untruths,  and 
handed  to  the  children  for  consumption ;  as  if,  forsooth, 
it  made  the  truth  any  stronger  to  tell  lies  about  it, 
or  as  if  the  child  never  grew  up  and  found  out  that 
those  who  thus  taught  him  were  really  unconscionable 
frauds  and  morally  far  worse  than  the  class  of  people 
against  whom  they  were  trying  to  stir  up  his  childish 
prejudices. 

This  species  of  fraud  and  deception  is  carried  now- 
adays even  into  the  sacred  precincts  of  some  of  our 
churches.  Under  the  auspices  of  the  so-called  Scientific 
Temperance  Federation,  lectures  are  to-day  being 
held  in  a  number  of  churches,  where,  among  other 
"scientific"  demonstrations,  the  following  is  of  fre- 
quent occurrence:  The  lecturer,  speaking  from  the 
pulpit,  produces  a  phial  containing  what  purports  to 
be  the  alcohol  extracted  from  one  pint  of  beer,  and 
telling  his  audience  that  he  is  going  to  demonstrate 
what  an  all-devouring  fiend  lurks  in  this  substance,  he 
orders  the  lights  in  the  church  to  be  turned  out,  and 
then  proceeds  to  apply  a  match  to  the  alcohol,  where- 
upon, according  to  the  veracious  chronicler  of  this 
dramatic  event,  the  flame  from  the  alcohol  extracted 


Brewers'  Congress.  167 

from  one  pint  of  beer  lights  up  the  entire  church  for 
a  period  of  ten  minutes. 

Think  of  it!  Less  than  one-half  of  one  ounce  of 
alcohol,  a  substance  the  flame  of  which,  as  the  merest 
tyro  in  chemistry  knows,  is  practically  non-luminant, 
burns,  under  the  miraculous  influence  of  the  Scientific 
Temperance  Federation,  for  ten  minutes  with  the  illu- 
minating effect  of  several  hundred  candlepower. 
When,  in  the  name  of  science  and  morality,  and  under 
the  cloak  of  religion  itself,  such  infamous  frauds  as 
these  are  perpetrated  by  the  supposedly  good  and 
God-fearing  people  of  this  world,  is  it  to  be  wondered 
at  if  the  very  dregs  of  humanity  rise  up  from  their 
depths  in  derision,  saying:  "Truth,  and  decency,  and 
goodness  are  mere  myths.  Why  try  to  reform  us? 
Your  pretended  reformers  are  worse  than  we." 

These  are  shocking  facts,  and  still  they  are  not  the 
worst.  If  you,  gentlemen,  who  come  from  other 
countries,  were  to  see,  as  we  see  here  every  day,  thou- 
sands of  women,  young  girls  and  boys,  actually  en- 
couraged by  their  spiritual  advisers  to  attend  so-called 
temperance  meetings  addressed  by  a  certain  notorious 
and  unsavory  evangelist,  whose  profanity  and  obscenity 
of  speech  and  gesture,  if  perpetrated  in  the  lowest 
vaudeville  show  in  the  New  York  bowery,  would  prob- 
ably cause  the  closing  of  the  place  by  the  authorities, 
and  if  you  were  to  witness  the  raving  enthusiasm 
aroused  in  them  .by  this  past-master  in  the  practice 


168  Brewers'  Congress. 

of  scurrility  and  indecency,  you  would  not  wonder  at 
my  saying  that  all  the  physical  drunkenness  caused  in 
our  world  by  excessive  indulgence  in  liquor  is  but  a 
trifle  as  compared  with  the  moral  drunkenness  which 
is  being  produced  throughout  the  nation  by  this  money- 
making  mountebank  and  his  likes,  who,  under  the 
pretense  of  pursuing  a  philanthropic  end,  cunningly 
appeal  to  what  is  worst  and  weakest  in  human  nature, 
and  who  distort  and  twist  the  most  beautiful  religion 
the  world  has  known  into  a  grotesque  caricature  of 
the  divine  conception  of  its  founder.  Yet  this  is 
typical  of  what  goes  by  the  name  of  the  temperance 
movement  in  this  country. 

But,  and  I  cannot  emphasize  this  fact  too  strongly, 
it  is  not  the  real  American  temperance  movement, 
though  it  overshadows,  and  hampers,  and  stifles  it; 
nor  are  its  leaders  the  true  pioneers  of  American  tem- 
perance, though  they  unhappily  outshout  and  entrant 
those  true  ones  and  more  than  nullify  their  work. 

Now,  this  true  temperance  work,  and  I  say  this  ad- 
visedly, is  of  paramount  interest  to  none  more  than 
to  the  manufacturer  of  alcoholic  beverages,  and  those 
among  us,  if  there  are  any,  who  are  not  alive  to  this 
fact  are  lacking  in  knowledge  of  the  very  rudiments 
of  their  trade.  The  men,  therefore,  who  are  perform- 
ing this  work,  and  if  it  were  not  individious,  I  could 
mention  names  well  known  to  our  fellow-brewers  of 
Chicago  and  New  York,  should  have  not  only  our 


Brewers'  Congress.  169 

respect,  but  our  assistance,  and  to  the  fullest  extent  to 
which  that  assistance  can  be  given,  for  drunkenness, 
or  even  mere  drinking  combined  with  any  kind  or  form 
of  dissipation  or  vice,  is  the  greatest  enemy  the  brewing 
industry  has  to  contend  with. 

Unfortunately,  as  we  know,  and  as  the  true  advocate 
of  temperance  knows,  there  are,  and  probably  always 
will  be,  men  among  us  who  suffer  from  that  most  un- 
fortunate of  all  combinations,  an  abnormally  strong 
appetite  coupled  with  an  abnormally  weak  digestion. 
Some  people,  I  believe,  look  upon  these  men  as  a  kind 
of  living  proof  of  the  wickedness  of  the  maker  of 
pastries  and  other  rich  and  delectable  foods.  But  only 
the  fool  imagines  that  he  can  cure  these  unfortunate 
subjects  of  their  want  of  gastric  equilibrium  by  simply 
inhibiting  the  making  and  selling  of  all  toothsome  pies 
and  pastries.  It  is  true  that  pastries  and  pies  are  not 
absolute  necessaries  of  life,  any  more  perhaps  than 
beer  is,  but  they  contribute,  when  indulged  in,  as  they 
are  in  the  majority  of  cases,  in  moderation,  not  incon- 
siderably to  the  pleasure  of  living,  and  I  hold  that  to 
be  a  virtue  far  surpassing  that  of  the  man  who  not 
only  obeys  the  ten  commandments,  but  passes  his  life 
in  regretting  that  there  are  not  a  few  more  command- 
ments to  be  obeyed.  The  wise  philanthropist,  then, 
to  carry  my  metaphor  to  its  logical  finish,  will  devote 
his  energies  to  putting  educational  and  other  whole- 
some curbs  on  the  man  with  the  abnormally  strong 


170  Brewers3  Congress. 

appetite  and  the  abnormally  weak  digestion,  rather 
than  waste  those  energies  in  the  futile  endeavor  to 
destroy  the  source  of  the  pies  and  pastries  in  which  he 
so  foolishly  over-indulges. 

And  if  we  recognize  this  obvious  fact,  are  we  not 
thereby  recognizing  in  substance  the  very  motive  that 
actuates  that  class  of  true  advocates  of  temperance  to 
which  I  referred  a  moment  ago?  The  purpose  of  the 
man  of  this  class  is  to  mend,  not  to  destroy,  to  cure, 
not  to,  kill,  and,  though  he  is  perhaps  prone  to  see  evil 
where  we  do  not  see  it,  he  and  we  are  in  the  main  of 
one  mind  as  to  the  more  urgent  necessities  to  be  met, 
even  if  we  differ  as  to  the  best  method  of  meeting  them. 
In  short,  I  think  I  am  correct  in  saying  that  the  so- 
called  much  debated  liquor  problem,  as  it  presents 
itself  to  the  man  of  this  class,  does  not  hinge  upon  the 
manufacture  and  the  consumption  of  alcoholic  drink  as 
such,  but  turns  around  the  manner  in  which  it  is  sold 
or  dispensed,  and  more  especially  therefore  around 
the  public  drinking  places,  their  character,  their  num- 
ber, and  their  environment. 

Let  us,  then,  for  a  moment  compare  the  attitude  of 
the  brewer  towards  the  «public  drinking  place  with  the 
attitude  of  the  temperance  advocate  towards  that  much 
discussed  institution.  The  temperance  man,  and  I  shall 
henceforth  use  the  term  in  its  true  sense,  admits,  though 
regretfully  perhaps  from  his  standpoint,  that  the 
saloon,  as  we  call  it  in  this  country,  or  the  public 


Brewers3  Congress.  171 

house,  cabaret,  or  wirthschaft,  as  it  is  known  respec- 
tively in  England,  France  and  Germany,  supplies  a 
practical  need  on  the  part  of  millions  and  millions  of 
decent,  well-behaved,  and  honorable  people,  which  no 
theorizing  can  eradicate,  namely,  the  need  of  a  means 
of  social  intercourse  and  physical  and  mental  recrea- 
tion. It  is,  of  course,  obvious  to  him,  as  it  must  be  to 
every  one  else,  that,  like  all  human  institutions,  without 
exception,  the  saloon,  as  a  means  of  satisfying  that 
need,  has  its  drawbacks  as  well  as  its  advantages,  is 
subject  to  evil  uses  as  well  as  good  uses,  and  in  con- 
sequence is  fraught  with  certain  temptations,  to  which 
the  weak  and  the  foolish  are  liable  to  succumb.  But 
if  he  is  really  conversant  with  saloon  life  in  all  its 
aspects  and  phases,  he  also  recognizes  the  equally  ob- 
vious fact  that  those  who  do  succumb  to  the  tempta- 
tions of  the  saloon  are  very  few  as  compared  with  the 
many  who  derive  only  comfort  and  benefit  and  profit 
from  it.  Hence  he  has  set  himself,  as  a  rational  and 
practical  being,  the  task  of  remedying  what  he  believes 
to  be  the  defects  of  the  institution  as  it  exists,  rather 
than  attempting  to  destroy  it,  root  and  branch,  without 
offering  the  millions  to  whose  needs  it  ministers  any 
substitute  for  it,  or  perhaps  insisting  upon  replacing  it 
with  some  substitute  of  his  own  devising,  which  those 
millions  will  not  accept. 

This,  I  believe,  describes  fairly  accurately  the  atti- 
tude of  the  present-day  true  advocate  of  temperance 
towards  the  public  drinking  place. 


172  Brewers'  Congress. 

Now  wherein  does  that  attitude  differ  from  that  of 
the  brewer?  The  peculiar  character  of  the  brewer's 
product,  more  especially  perhaps  of  lager  beer,  and 
the  conditions  under  which  it  must  be  stored  and 
served  to  the  consumer,  render  the  public  drinking 
place  the  natural  and  almost  indispensable  market  for 
it.  It  may  be  conceded,  then,  without  further  argu- 
ment, that  the  destruction  of  that  market  would  reduce 
the  consumption  of  beer  throughout  the  world  to  a 
mere  fraction  of  what  it  is  to-day.  This  is  the  brewer's 
commercial  reason  for  defending  the  public  drinking 
place.  But  has  he  no  other  reason?  Would,  for  in- 
stance, its  destruction,  even  if  it  were  possible,  reduce 
the  consumption  of  alcoholic  drink  in  the  aggregate, 
or  lessen  by  one  whit  the  tendency  to  abuse  or  excess, 
to  which  some  individuals  are  unhappily  prone?  If 
any  answer  were  needed  to  that  question,  our  American 
so-called  prohibition  States  would  supply  one  which  is 
far  more  conclusive  than  any  which  I  could  suggest, 
for  it  is  notorious  that  the  increase  in  the  consumption 
of  ardent  spirits  in  those  States  is  out  of  all  proportion 
greater  than  the  decline  in  the  consumption  of  beer 
there.  Moreover,  it  is  a  well-established  fact  that 
drunkenness,  immorality,  and  all  other  evils  which  are 
supposed  to  arise  from,  merely  because  they  happen 
to  be  often  co-existent  with,  excessive  indulgence  in 
alcoholic  liquor,  have  increased  there  in  the  same  ratio. 
Nor  is  this  all.  The  public  drinking  place,  far  from 


Brewers'  Congress.  173 

having  been  destroyed  in  those  States,  has,  merely  been 
driven  into  secret  places,  multiplied  in  number,  de- 
prived of  all  its  good  features,  and  reduced  to  the 
lowest  level  which  the  human  imagination  can  con- 
ceive. Can  there,  then,  be  any  stronger  proof  than 
that  which  prohibition  itself  has  afforded,  that  the  true 
solution  of  the  liquor  problem,  so  far  as  it  is  humanly 
possible  to  solve  it,  lies  not  in  the  elimination,  or  the 
attempted  elimination,  of  the  public  drinking  place,  but 
in  raising  its  standard,  and  encouraging  its  good  uses 
and  discouraging  its  evil  uses? 

And,  let  me  ask,  is  there  a  brewer  worthy  of  the 
name  on  this  or  any  other  continent  who  is  not  inter- 
ested, both  as  a  business  man  and  a  citizen,  in  seeing 
that  standard  raised? 

There  is  no  need,  in  this  connection,  to  analyze  the 
accusation  so  indiscriminately  launched  against  the 
brewer  that  he  is  in  part,  if  not  wholly,  responsible  for 
the  condition  of  his  market,  the  public  drinking  place. 
Whatever  the  evil  effects  of  his  alleged  past  negligence 
or  wilful  indifference  in  this  regard  may  be,  they  are 
nothing  as  compared  with  the  vitiating  influence  which 
has  been  wrought  upon  that  market  by  the  criminal 
stupidity  of  that"  ubiquitous  modern  pest,  the  pseudo 
temperance  reformer.  I  say  most  emphatically  that  he 
is  the  common  enemy  both  of  the  brewer  and  the  real 
temperance  man,  and  is  largely  the  cause  why  the  two 
have  not  long  ago  come  together  and  joined  hands  in 


174  Brewers'  Congress. 

accomplishing  that  which,  in  spite  of  their  minor  dif- 
ferences of  thought  and  purpose,  it  is  their  common 
interest  and  wish  to  see  accomplished.  For  there  is 
and  can  be  no  real  difference  in  their  view  of  what  is 
right  and  desirable.  The  only  question  with  both  is: 
How  can  it  be  accomplished? 

And  how,  indeed,  can  it  be  accomplished? 

The  brewer  has  the  expert  trade  knowledge,  the 
practical  experience,  the  insight  into  the  causes  of 
conditions  and  circumstances  which  tend  to  lower  or 
vitiate  the  character  of  the  public  drinking  place.  But 
in  his  efforts  to  correct  those  conditions  and  remove 
their  causes,  and  I  speak  with  the  knowledge  of  actual 
experience  when  I  say  that  earnest  efforts  of  this  kind 
have  been  made  by  him,  he  has  met  with  practically 
insurmountable  obstacles.  Foolish  laws,  lax  law  en- 
forcement, oppressive  taxation,  public  indifference  or 
skepticism,  and  last,  not  least,  the  machinations  of 
grafting  office-holders  and  corrupt  politicians,  have  all 
combined  to  oppose  an  effective  barrier  to  the  success 
of  those  efforts.  On  the  other  hand,  the  philanthropic 
worker,  recruited  mostly  from  the  higher  planes  of 
society,  intellectually  speaking,  wields  a  public  influ- 
ence and  commands  a  public  following  which,  if  prop- 
erly directed,  could  override  the  stoutest  of  such  bar- 
riers; only,  unfortunately,  while  he  is  fully  conversant 
with  all  phases  of  the  evil  he  would  remove,  he  is 
lacking  in  that  knowledge,  experience  a^d  insight 


Brewers'  Congress.  175 

which  make  the  man  in  the  trade  itself  a  competent 
judge  both  of  the  possibilities  of  correcting  it  and  the 
dangers  of  aggravating  it. 

Now,  here  are  two  forces  which,  if  intelligently 
molded  into  one,  as  I  believe  they  can  be,  would  each 
supply  that  in  which  the  other  is  lacking  and  make 
of  them  one  homogeneous  whole,  whose  power  for 
good  would  be  formidable,  if  not  irresistible. 

And  why  have  these  forces  never  been  joined?  I 
think  there  are  two  main  reasons.  Firstly,  because, 
until  comparitively  recently,  neither  of  them  has  trusted 
the  other's  sincerity  and  good  intentions,  and,  secondly, 
and  perhaps  chiefly,  because  the  rabid  fanatic,  with 
his  fierce  and  blatant  battle-cry  of  "death  to  all  toler- 
ance," has  always  been  as  viciously  denunciatory  of  the 
temperance  man  as  he  is  of  the  brewer,  and  is  in  con- 
sequence as  much  dreaded  by  the  former  as  he  is  de- 
spised by  the  latter.  He  does  not  want  the  decent 
saloon  because  he  knows  it  to  be  his  most  powerful 
adversary,  just  as  the  dive  and  the  low  resort  are  his 
most  precious  allies.  His  ungodly  doctrine  that  to 
increase  an  evil  is  the  best  means  of  eventually  destroy- 
ing it  is  made  manifest  in  his  every  thought  and  his 
every  act,  and  his  venom  is  ready  for  all  and  any  who 
question  its  soundness. 

Don't  imagine  that  I  exaggerate.  I  have  spoken 
here  perhaps  in  unusually  strong  and  forcible  lan- 
guage. But  has  not  the  time  come  for  some  one  to 


176  Brewers'  Congress. 

proclaim  the  truth  in  plain  and  unmistakable  terms, 
to  the  shame  of  the  many  cowards  who  are  dodging 
it  and  the  confusion  of  the  many  hypocrites  who  are 
dissembling  it?  Look  at  Maine,  that  pretended  show- 
piece of  the  prohibitionist's  achievement.  By  what 
means  did  he  recently  prevent  that  State  from  ridding 
itself  of  the  curse  of  prohibition,  to  which  he  has  sub- 
jected it  for  nearly  fifty  years?  Not  by  the  votes  of 
those  who  believe  in  temperance  and  decency,  nor  even 
by  the  votes  of  his  own  misguided  dupes,  for  he  had 
no  longer  enough  of  these  left  to  support  him.  No, 
prohibition  was  retained  in  Maine,  as  everyone  knows, 
by  the  thousands  and  thousands  of  votes  cast  for  prohi- 
bition by  those  grinning  henchmen  of  the  prohibition- 
ist, the  bootlegger,  the  dive-owner,  the  tough  and  crim- 
inal element,  and  the  grafting  city  officials  who  fatten 
on  the  mass  of  corruption  which  the  prohibitionist  pro- 
vides for  them.  And  what  is  the  result  of  this  unholy 
alliance  between  him  and  the  evil  elements  of  society, 
which  he  makes  no  endeavor  to  conceal?  Prohibition 
Maine,  a  whited  sepulchre,  reeking  within  of  foulness 
and  putrescence,  but  which  the  prohibitionist  brazenly 
presents  to  the  credulous  world  as  a  golden  palace  redo- 
lent of  sweet  perfume  and  ideal  delights. 

The  true  worker  in  the  cause  of  temperance  sees  the 
lie  and  the  infamy  of  it  all,  and  is  beginning  to  raise 
his  voice  in  timid  protest  against  the  perpetrators  of 
this  gigantic  modern  fraud.  This  is  a  healthy  sign, 


Brewers'  Congress.  177 

but  there  is  a  better  and  more  promising  sign  still. 
There  are  indications  of  late  that  the  attitude  of  dis- 
trust which  the  advocate  of  temperance  has  hitherto 
maintained  towards  the  brewing  industry  is  undergoing 
a  change,  and  I  see  in  this  change  the  best  augury  of 
future  successful  progress  in  the  direction  towards 
which  both  are  striving.  At  the  38th  National  Confer- 
ence of  Charities  and  Correction,  held  in  Boston,  com- 
ment was  made  upon  the  recent  statement  of  the  dis- 
tinguished Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Fourteen  of 
New  York  to  the  effect  that  the  efforts  of  the  com- 
mittee to  eliminate  the  evil  elements  in  the  saloon  busi- 
ness of  that  city  had  proved  practically  fruitless,  until 
the  committee  invited  the  co-operation  of  the  brewing 
industry  in  its  work.  The  statement  then  goes  on  to 
emphasize,  not  only  the  readiness  with  which  that  co- 
operation had  been  extended  to  it,  but  the  eminently 
satisfactory  results  that  had  immediately  followed  it. 
Professor  John  Graham  Brooks  then  took  up  the 
parable  and  expressed  the  opinion  that,  after  years  and 
years  of  utterly  ineffective  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
temperance  man  to  lessen  or  correct  certain  existing 
evils,  the  time  had  come  for  him  to  seek  the  co-opera- 
tion of  the  best  men  in  the  liquor  business,  and  enlist 
their  knowledge  and  experience  in  accomplishing  this 
work. 

Now,  I  believe  there  is  no  intelligent  man  in  our 
ranks  who  can  doubt  the  wisdom  of  that  conclusion,  and 


178  Brewers3  Congress. 

if  nothing  more  were  done  by  this  Congress  than  to 
approve  and  ratify  that  conclusion  and  suggest  the 
means  of  making  it  practical  in  effect,  its  work  would 
not  prove  in  vain.  This  should  not  be  done,  however, 
by  merely  passing  resolutions  embodying  intangible 
generalities,  but  by  offering  those  who  ask  our  assist- 
ance a  specific,  well-defined  policy,  which  can  be 
adopted  .as  a  common  starting  ground  of  mutual 
endeavor. 

Speaking  for  myself,  my  experience  has  led  me  to 
certain  fundamental  conclusions  in  regard  to  the 
public  drinking  place,  on  the  correctness  of  which  I 
think  few  among  us  are  likely  to  differ  in  opinion. 

I  believe,  of  course,  first  and  foremost,  that  the  char- 
acters of  persons  licensed  to  conduct  a  retail  liquor 
business  should  be  subject  to  careful  scrutiny,  and 
only  those  whose  record  is  clean  and  above  reproach 
should  be  permitted  to  engage  in  such  business. 

This  may  sound  almost  like  a  truism;  yet  bear  in 
mind  that  most  of  our  laws,  and  certainly  all  of  the 
so-called  successes  of  the  unthinking  reformers,  have 
tended,  and  are  tending,  to  drive  the  decent,  respect- 
able man  out  of  the  business  and  the  unscrupulous  and 
irresponsible  man  into  it. 

I  believe  that  public  drinking  places  in  the  haunts 
of  vice  are  dangerous,  and  that  they  should  be  elim- 
inated. . 

I  believe  that  public  drinking  places  in  communities 


Brewers'  Congress.  179 

where  the  legal  machinery  does  not  exist  to  properly 
control  and  regulate  them  are  undesirable  and  should 
be  discountenanced. 

I  believe  that  any  urban  community,  whether  large 
or  small,  should  have  the  right,  properly  controlled  by 
the  State,  to  limit  the  number,  or,  by  the  vote  of  a 
really  substantial  majority  of  its  citizens,  to  entirely 
prohibit  the  establishment  of  public  drinking  places  in 
its  midst;  provided,  however,  that  where  public  drink- 
ing places  have  already  been  established,  with  the  con- 
sent, tacit  or  otherwise,  of  such  communities,  their 
owners  shall  be  properly  compensated  for  the  loss 
entailed  upon  them  by  such  limitation  or  prohibition. 

The  public,  I  hold,  is  entitled  at  all  times,  whether 
wisely  or  unwisely,  to  change  its  opinion  on  matters  of 
public  policy  or  general  expediency,  but  only  at  its 
own  cost,  not  at  the  cost  of  the  individual  whose  vested 
interests  are  affected  by  that  change  of  opinion. 
Strangely  enough,  this  is  accepted  as  an  almost  sacred 
axiom  by  practically  every  civilized  nation  except  our 
own. 

Now,  I  respectfully  submit  that  there  is  nothing 
transcendentally  ideal  or  Utopian  in  this  outline  of 
what,  in  my  humble  opinion,  it  should  be  the  joint  aim 
of  the  brewer  and  the  true  temperance  man  to  bring 
about,  nor  is  there  anything  in  it  to  which  either  the 
true  temperance  man  or  the  honest  manufacturer  of 
alcoholic  beverages  can  reasonably  demur  or  object. 


180  Brewers'  Congress. 

Why,  then,  should  it  not  prove  capable  of  accomplish- 
ment? No  scheme  devised  by  the  human  mind  has 
ever  proved  perfect  in  its  effect,  nor  ever  will.  It  is, 
in  fact,  those  that  believe,  or  pretend  to  believe,  that 
perfection  is  attainable  in  this  world  who  are  the 
greatest  obstacles  in  the  way  of  human  progress. 
Even  man's  religious  faith  merely  sets  him  a  standard 
towards  which  to  strive,  without  hope  or  prospect  of 
ever  attaining  it  in  this  life.  We  shall,  therefore,  I 
apprehend,  never  cure  ourselves  of  all  our  faults  and 
shortcomings,  nor  succeed  in  relieving  mankind  in 
general  of  all  its  foibles  and  frailties,  but  we  can  by 
our  action  at  least  inculcate  one  truth  in  the  obtuse 
minds  of  certain  fanatical  friends  of  ours,  which  they 
are  badly  in  need  of  learning,  namely,  that  to  correct 
ourselves  is  the  surest  way  to  correct  others. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  if  I  have  presumed  to  occupy 
your  attention  at  such  length  with  opinions  and  reflec- 
tions of  this  specific  nature,  it  is  because  I  believe  the 
subject  they  bear  upon  to  be  of  greater  moment  than 
any  other  to  the  industry  of  which  we  are  all  so  justly 
proud.  There  is  no  blessing  that  providence  has  vouch- 
safed to  mankind  which  individual  man,  in  his  blind- 
ness, his  folly,  or  his  weakness,  has  not  proved  capable 
of  turning  into  a  curse  to  himself,  and  to  pretend  that 
alcoholic  stimulant  is  alone  exempt  from  that  universal 
rule  would  be  as  foolish  as  it  is  to  assert  that  the  rule 
applies  to  alcoholic  stimulant  only.  To  lessen  the  pos- 


Brewers'  Congress.  181 

sibilities  of  the  evil  use  of  that  stimulant,  therefore, 
and  increase  its  profitable  and  beneficial  possibilities, 
should  be  the  prime  aim  and  object  of  intelligent  men 
like  ourselves,  and  we  can  assuredly  apply  ourselves 
to  this  task  with  all  the  more  cheerfulness,  because  not 
the  least  happy  consequence  of  our  efforts  in  this 
direction  may  be  to  rid  the  world  of  that  greatest  of  all 
evils  for  which  I  am  afraid  alcoholic  liquor  must  be 
held  answerable,  that  is,  the  existence  of  that  latter-day 
monument  of  human  folly,  human  ignorance  and  hu- 
man hypocrisy,  the  prohibitionist. 

I    now    beg   to    declare    the    Second    International 
Brewers'  Congress  open  for  business. 


Argument  on  Constitutional  License 

Made  before  the  Liquor  Traffic  Committee  of  the  Ohio 
Constitutional  Convention,  1912 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee: 

Before  presenting  to  you  the  arguments  of  those 
who  favor  the  proposed  constitutional  amendment  pro- 
viding for  the  licensing  of  the  liquor  traffic,  which  is 
now  under  your  consideration,  it  is  perhaps  appropriate 
for  me  to  state  that  I  am  not  an  attorney,  but  merely 
a  business  man  representing  the  industries  and  trades 
which  are  most  vitally  interested  in  seeing  that  con- 
stitutional amendment  adopted. 

I  think  I  am  correct  in  saying  that  Ohio  is  the  only 
State  in  the  Union  where,  by  constitutional  provision, 
the  retail  liquor  traffic  has  been  permitted  to  be  carried 
on  without  restriction  as  to  the  character  and  number 
of  persons  engaged  in  it.  To  those  who  are  not  con- 
versant with  the  history  of  the  liquor  question  in  Ohio 
this  fact  may  seem  so  anomalous  as  to  be  almost 
incapable  of  explanation.  Yet  the  explanation,  though 
perhaps  a  trifle  startling,  is  very  simple. 

There  are,  as  you  know,  States  where  the  traffic 
in  liquor  has  been  prohibited,  unfortunately  with  the 
invariable  consequence  that  that  traffic,  encouraged  and 


Constitutional  License.  183 

fostered  by  the  very  people  who  voted  to  prohibit  it, 
has  been  patronized  by  them  clandestinely  to  a  greater 
and  more  dangerous  extent  than  ever  before.  In  Ohio 
the  attempt  to  force  prohibition  on  the  people  failed. 
Consequently,  those  who  believe  that  the  use  of  stimu- 
lants in  any  form  is  undesirable,  particularly  for  their 
neighbors,  proceeded  to  agitate  and  work  for  a  condi- 
tion of  things  which,  while  permitting  the  traffic  in 
such  stimulants  to  be  carried  on,  would  withdraw  from 
it  its  main  safeguard  against  abuse,  and  throw  it  open 
to  the  most  undesirable  and  irresponsible  elements  of 
the  citizenship,  thus  causing  it  to  become  so  dangerous, 
so  pernicious  and  so  offensive  to  the  community  that 
even  those  who  approved  of  it  would  be  forced,  against 
their  will  and  better  judgment,  to  consent  to  its 
abolition. 

This  is  not  a  mere  fancy  of  my  own,  nor  is  it  a  mere 
conclusion  deduced  by  me  from  more  or  less  uncertain 
premises.  It  is,  as  I  propose  to  show  you,  an  actual 
summary  of  that  which  the  debates  on  the  question  of 
licensing  the  saloon  business  in  the  Constitutional 
Conventions  of  1851  and  1873  disclose  as  being  the 
avowed  motive  of  those  who  in  these  conventions  in- 
sisted on  having  incorporated  in  the  Constitution  of 
the  State  a  clause  prohibiting  the  licensing  of  the 
liquor  traffic  in  Ohio. 

Mr.  Stanton,  the  delegate  from  Logan  County  and 
the  leader  of  the  temperance  forces  in  the  Convention 


184  Constitutional  License. 

of  1850-51,  spoke  as  follows  on  January  30,  1851, 
and  his  definition  of  the  policy  of  those  he  represented 
was  accepted  and  endorsed  by  every  no-license  advocate 
in  that  Convention: 

"The  friends  of  temperance  on  every  side  cried  out 
for  an  open  field.  They  could  not  contend  against 
that  sanction  of  the  traffic  which  was  conferred  by  a 
license  issued  to  a  man  of  good  moral  character.  Take 
away  that  shield  and  the  parties  are  placed  upon  equal 
ground.  If  the  people  are  willing  to  turn  loose  the 
horrors  of  intemperance  upon  themselves,  and  then  to 
bear  them,  without  an  effort  to  rid  themselves  of  the 
evil,  let  them  do  it.  *  *  *  The  truth  is,  the  great 
obstacle  to  the  temperance  reform  is  the  respectability 
of  those  who  engage  in  the  traffic. 

"If  every  man  who  pleased  were  allowed  to  buy  and 
sell  spirituous  liquors,  it  would  bring  in  all  sorts  of 
men,  and  the  calling  would  fall  into  disrepute,  and 
become  degraded.  *  *  * 

"So  long  as  places  are  respectable,  men  will  resort 
to  them."  (Page  438,  Ohio  Convention  Debates, 
1850-51.) 

Think  of  it!  So  long  as  places  are  respectable,  men 
will  resort  to  them.  Therefore,  make  them  disrepu- 
table. So  long  as  men  of  good  moral  character  serve 
the  people  with  the  beverages  they  want,  the  people 
will  continue  to  indulge  in  them.  Therefore,  substitute 
immoral  and  dissolute  men  for  these  men  of  good  moral 


Constitutional  License.  185 

character,  and  the  people  will  cease  to  indulge  in  drink. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  sixty  years  since,  deluded  by  such 
monstrous  arguments  as  these,  the  voters  of  those 
days  blindly  gave  into  the  hands  of  the  so-called  tem- 
perance advocates  this  means  of  testing  the  efficacy  of 
their  strange  doctrine  that  to  foster  what  is  evil  in  that 
which  they  aim  to  destroy  is  the  best  means  of  securing 
its  destruction.  After  forcing  a  trade,  which  they 
admitted  to  be  conducted  by  men  of  decent  and  respect- 
able habits  and  principles,  to  throw  down  every  barrier 
and  open  itself  up  to  the  irresponsible  and  unscrupulous 
elements  of  the  community,  they  have  now  for  sixty 
years  been  indignantly  and  disingenuously  pointing 
to  the  lawlessness  of  those  very  elements  of  their  own 
creation  as  an  argument  and  a  reason  for  abolishing 
a  trade  which  they  themselves  had  designedly  thrown 
open  to  them. 

Let  it  not  be  imagined,  however,  that  it  has  taken 
the  people  all  these  years  to  discover  the  evil  effect  of 
the  immoral  conditions  that  were  thus  foisted  upon 
them — by  way,  I  apprehend,  of  ultimately  lifting  them 
on  to  that  higher  plane  of  morality,  from  which  their 
self-appointed  guardians  shine  down  upon  us  lesser 
mortals.  Already  in  1873  the  cry  for  a  judicious  li- 
cense law  had  become  so  insistent  throughout  the  State 
that  a  resubmission  of  the  question  could  not  be  suc- 
cessfully contested  by  its  opponents  in  the  constitu- 
tional convention  held  in  that  year.  The  resourceful- 


186  Constitutional  License. 

ness  of  these  opponents,  therefore,  was  taxed  rather 
severely  to  meet  this  situation,  but,  always  equal  to 
the  occasion,  they  contrived  to  so  meet  it  that,  when 
submitted  to  the  people,  the  question  of  licensing  the 
liquor  traffic  was  sure  to  be  negatived  by  the  very  men 
upon  whom  the  champions  of  license  had  counted  to 
answer  that  question  in  the  affirmative.  In  other 
words,  every  conceivable  attempt  was  made  to  super- 
impose upon  the  simple  proposition  of  empowering  the 
legislature  to  enact  a  license  law  conditions  of  so 
burdensome  or  uncertain  a  nature  that  the  saloon- 
keeper himself  and  his  friends  would  fear  to  vote  for  it. 

I  mention  this  advisedly,  because  it  has  been  plainly 
intimated  to  the  friends  of  license  that  these  same  tac- 
tics are  going  to  be  repeated  on  this  occasion.  Their 
object,  of  course,  is  the  same  as  that  which  was  pur- 
sued by  the  no-license  advocates  of  forty  and  sixty 
years  ago,  namely,  to  insure  at  any  cost  the  continua- 
tion of  a  condition  that  must  tend  to  force  evil  elements 
into  the  liquor  traffic,  and  thus  so  injure  and  corrupt 
the  people  who  avail  themselves  of  their  right  to  enjoy 
what  it  offers  them  that  they  will  sicken  of  that  enjoy- 
ment and  ultimately  consent  to  forego  it  altogether. 

It  is  not  my  province,  nor  is  this  perhaps  the  place, 
to  discuss  the  morality  of  this  proceeding.  But  the 
question  of  its  expediency  is  one  which  so  vitally  affects 
the  welfare,  moral  and  physical,  of  the  community  that 
I  believe  no  other  question  now  pending  before  this 


Constitutional  License.  .187 

convention  is  more  urgently  in  need  of  its  attention. 
Gentlemen,  what  would  be  thought  of  men,  who, 
believing  the  consumption  of  well-water  to  be  fraught 
with  danger  to  the  public  health,  and  failing  to  deprive 
the  people  of  the  right  to  sink  and  use  wells,  would 
deliberately  pass  a  law  forbidding  them  to  encase  their 
wells  and  thus  protect  them  against  contamination  from 
the  surrounding  earth,  with  the  purpose  of  allowing 
sewage  and  other  deadly  matter  to  seep  into  them 
unhindered  and  thereby  render  them  so  dangerous  and 
injurious  to  the  community  at  large  that,  for  the 
sake  of  pure  self-preservation,  it  would  consent  to 
abolish  them  altogether?  Substitute  the  word  "saloon" 
for  the  word  "well,"  and  this  is  exactly  what  was  done, 
and  done  deliberately,  by  those  who,  sixty  years  ago, 
deprived  the  saloon  of  its  one  and  only  safeguard 
against  the  intrusion  of  evil  and  vicious  elements, 
namely,  a  license  imposing  restrictions  as  to  the  char- 
acter and  .number  of  persons  permitted  to  engage  in 
the  saloon  business.  In  taking  the  license  from  the 
liquor  traffic,  they  took  from  it,  knowingly,  that  which 
corresponds  with  the  encasement  of  a  well;  in  other 
words,  its  only  protection  against  the  sewage  and  foul 
matter  that  is  liable  to  seep  into  it  from  the  outside; 
and  having  done  this,  they  heaped  insult  on  to  injury 
by  adding  a  paragraph  to  their  no-license  clause  sar- 
castically empowering  the  legislature  to  pass  laws 
providing  against  the  evils  arising  from  the  traffic 


188  Constitutional  License. 

they  had  thus  designedly  left  unprotected  against 
them.  Could  a  more  cruel  piece  of  irony  be  conceived? 

Suppose  the  believers  of  Christian  Science,  who  con- 
sider the  use  of  medicines  sinful,  and  who  regard  the 
practice  of  a  physician  or  surgeon  as  offensive  to  God, 
would  come  to  you  and,  while  admitting,  as  the  pro- 
hibitionists do,  that  the  great  majority  of  the  people 
are  not  yet  sufficiently  enlightened  to  share  their  views, 
would  ask  you  to  withdraw  all  restrictive  safeguards 
from  the  medical  profession  and  the  trade  of  the  drug- 
gist, so  that  this  profession  and  this  trade  might  fall 
into  the  worst  possible  hands  and  grow  to  be  so  dan- 
gerous to  mankind  that  people  would  rather  become 
Christian  Scientists  than  permit  them  to  exist  any 
longer.  Would  you  not  lift  up  your  hands  in  utter 
horror  at  such  a  demand?  Yet,  mark  that,  upon  their 
own  admission,  this  was  the  sole  intent  of  those  who, 
sixty  years  ago,  succeeded  in  having  the  no-license 
clause  incorporated  in  the  constitution  of  our  State. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  nothing  less  than  a  marvel  that, 
under  such  conditions  as  these,  the  saloon  business  of 
this  State  generally  should  have  maintained  the  stand- 
ard of  respectability  which  it  has.  For,  in  spite  of  all 
that  has  been  said  and  written  about  the  lawless  saloon, 
the  fact  is  that  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the  saloon- 
keepers of  the  State  are  men  of  good  character  and 
staunch  principles.  Indeed,  I  venture  to  say  that, 
with  every  means  thus  denied  them  of  protecting  their 


Constitutional  License.  189 

business  against  the  corrupting  influences  that  have 
been  permitted  to  assail  it,  they  have  struggled  against 
those  influences  with  a  success  which  the  members  of 
few  trades  and  professions — and  I  do  not  except  even 
the  most  exalted — would,  under  like  circumstances, 
have  achieveed. 

These  men,  in  their  thousands,  for  whom  it  is  my 
pride  to  be  able  to  speak  before  you  to-day,  have  been 
made  to  suffer  the  odium  brought  upon  their  trade  by 
the  vicious  elements  that  have  been  allowed  to  enter  it 
unchallenged  and  use  it  as  a  cloak  for  vile  and  unclean 
practices,  which  are  no  more  an  inherent  feature  of  that 
trade  than  stealing  is  an  inherent  feature  of  the  bank- 
ing trade,  fraud  an  inherent  feature  of  the  legal  and 
commercial  professions,  and  a  certain  other  class  of 
social  crime  an  inherent  feature  of  the  ministerial  call- 
ing. These  men  are  unanimously  supporting  the  de- 
mand of  their  many  fellow-citizens  for  a  means  of 
purging  their  ranks  of  these  vicious  elements,  for 
whose  presence  there,  not  they,  but  their  would-be 
destroyers  are  responsible. 

Is  it,  then,  a  reasonable  thing  that  the  people,  who 
possess  the  right  to  have  saloons  if  they  so  desire, 
should  be  compelled,  when  they  exercise  that  right,  to 
have  them  only  accompanied  by  dangerous  conditions, 
that  render  them  a  constant  menace  to  their  health 
and  morals?  Is  it  reasonable  that  a  certain  class  of 
men,  who  happen  to  have  made  the  abolition  of  liquor 


190  Constitutional  License. 

an  integral  part  of  their  religion,  should  be  permitted 
to  say  to  the  people  at  large,  who  do  not  share  their 
religious  views:  "It  is  true  that  you  have  the  right 
to  indulge  in  stimulants,  but  as  long  as  you  exercise 
that  constitutional  right  of  yours,  we  will  see  to  it  that 
the  conditions  under  which  you  do  so  shall  be  so 
obnoxious,  so  dangerous,  so  detrimental,  that  you  will 
be  coerced  into  yielding  up  your  liberty  of  action  in 
this  respect." 

These  so-called  reformers  subscribe  to  the  sentiment 
that  it  is  expedient  to  permit  evil  so  that  good  may 
come  of  it.  Nay,  they  have  gone  even  farther  in  this 
instance  and  said  that  it  is  right  to  create  evil  so  that 
good  may  come  of  it.  "Rather  a  million  bootleggers 
than  one  open  saloon,"  as  one  of  their  foremost  leaders, 
Bishop  Quayle,  of  the  Methodist  Church,  has  put  it. 
With  all  due  respect  to  the  sacred  calling  of  that  gen- 
tleman, I  submit  that  such  a  statement  argues  almost  a 
form  of  mental  or  moral  aberration  in  the  person  who 
was  capable  of  uttering  it.  Yet,  sad  to  say,  it  typifies 
the  attitude  of  all  those  who  follow  his  leadership,  and 
who  are  represented  here  to-day  as  the  chief  opponents 
of  the  proposed  constitutional  amendment  you  are 
considering. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  endeavored  to  set  before  you,  as 
briefly  as  possible,  not  only  the  policy,  but  also  the 
motive  which,  by  their  own  admission,  actuated  those 
who,  sixty  years  ago,  were  responsible  for  the  clause 


Constitutional  License.  191 

in  the  present  constitution  prohibiting  the  licensing  of 
the  liquor  traffic.  I  ask  you  now  to  contemplate  the 
actual  result  of  that  policy,  so  far  as  the  people  of  this 
State  are  concerned. 

Three  years  ago,  after  procuring  during  the  pre- 
ceding fifty-seven  years  the  passage  of  numerous  stat- 
utes, by  which  they  designed  to  accomplish  the  second 
stage  of  their  avowed  policy  of  corruption,  namely,  the 
transition  from  the  unlicensed  saloon  to  the  still  more 
dangerous  and  vicious  speak-easy,  or  blind  tiger,  the 
anti-liquor  forces  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  enact- 
ment of  the  Rose  County  Option  law,  by  virtue  of 
which  the  inhabitants  of  our  cities,  who  had  steadily 
refused  to  abolish  the  saloon,  were  to  be  forced  to  do 
so  by  the  vote  of  the  rural  population.  The  effect  of 
this  law,  aided  as  it  was  by  the  obnoxious  conditions 
deliberately  created  during  the  preceding  fifty-seven 
years  by  its  promoters,  was  the  abolishment  of  the 
saloon  and  the  inevitable  inauguration  of  the  speak- 
easy and  low  dive  in  no  less  than  sixty-three  out  of  the 
eighty-eight  counties  of  the  State.  The  cities  fought 
with  all  their  voting  power  against  the  shocking  condi- 
tions thus  forced  upon  them — for  the  supposed  ulti- 
mate moral  good  of  the  citizenship,  but  in  vain.  The 
abominable  effect  of  these  conditions,  however,  has 
in  the  past  three  years  become  so  apparent,  even  to  the 
rural  voters  of  those  counties  that,  as  you  know,  they 
have  risen  in  their  might  and  at  last  emphatically  re- 


192  Constitutional  License. 

pudiated  the  organization  that  was  responsible  for  their 
creation,  and  have  placed  the  unmistakable  stamp  of 
their  condemnation  upon  the  insidious  policy,  of  which 
it  has  made  them  the  helpless  victims  for  so  many  years. 

The  Anti-Saloon  League,  of  course,  pleads  in 
excuse  of  this  miserable  fiasco,  in  which  its  well-laid 
plans  have  resulted,  that  it  has  been  defeated  by  the 
liquor  interests,  which  wickedly  refused  to  join  it  in 
forcing  those  who  desired  to  drink  to  abstain  from 
doing  so.  In  other  words,  it  pretends  to  argue  that, 
if  the  manufacturers  of  alcoholic  beverages  would,  of 
their  own  free  will,  have  ceased  to  supply  their  goods 
in  dry  counties,  all  would  have  been  well.  Paren- 
thetically, let  me  say  that  the  law  of  the  State  forbids 
neither  the  purchasing  of  those  goods  in  these  counties, 
nor  their  sale  there  by  the  manufacturers  from  the  out- 
side. But  this  fact  is  conveniently  ignored  in  this  dis- 
ingenuous argument  of  the  Anti- Saloon  League.  That 
League,  as  we  know,  is  a  law  unto  itself.  But,  thank 
heaven,  neither  the  brewers  and  liquor  dealers,  nor  the 
citizens  of  the  country  at  large  are,  as  yet  at  least, 
compelled  to  take  their  law  from  the  Anti- Saloon 
League. 

Even  if  they  were,  however,  the  insincerity  of  this 
argument  is  glaringly  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  the 
liquor  industries  have  repeatedly  offered  to  join  the 
Anti- Saloon  League  leaders  in  securing  the  passage 
of  a  law  that  will  make  both  the  buying  and  the  selling 


Constitutional  License.  193 

of  liquor  in  prohibition  territory  a  penal  offense.  Why, 
then,  have  they  persistently  refused  to  do  this?  Be- 
cause they  know,  as  well  as  we  do,  that  the  people, 
however  much  the  prohibitionist  may  succeed  in  cajol- 
ing or  coercing  them,  do  not  want  prohibition,  and 
that  the  moment  he  were  to  institute  a  form  of  prohibi- 
tion that  really  did  prohibit,  prohibition  would  there 
and  then  draw  its  last  breath. 

The  Anti-Saloon  League,  then,  says  in  fact:  "We 
dare  not  attempt  to  prohibit  the  use  of  liquor,  because 
we  know  that  the  great  majority  of  the  people  will  use 
it,  and  hence  by  depriving  them  of  their  right  to  it  we 
would  irretrievably  damage  our  cause.  But  we  want 
the  conditions  of  its  consumption  to  be  made  as  vile 
and  disreputable  as  a  crippled  machinery  of  the  law 
can  render  them,  because  those  conditions  will  insure 
and  perhaps  accelerate  the  success  of  our  cause."  We 
say,  on  the  other  hand:  "We  will  be  glad  to  join  the 
Anti- Saloon  League  in  forbidding  the  use  of  liquor, 
wherever  it  succeeds  in  forbidding  its  sale,  but,  wher- 
ever the  people  exercise  their  right  to  use  it,  we  want 
the  conditions  under  which  they  do  so  to  be  as  decent 
and  wholesome  as  an  uncrippled  legal  machinery  can 
make  them." 

In  other  words,  the  reason  why  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  opposes  a  license  system  is  the  identical  reason 
why  we  advocate  and  demand  it.  We  need  advance 
no  arguments  of  our  own.  We  can  safely  rest  our 


194  Constitutional  License. 

case  on  the  arguments  of  our  opponents,  as  recorded 
in  Ohio's  constitutional  history.  We  want  as  decent 
and  respectable  a  saloon  as  wise  and  judicious  laws 
can  give  us.  They  want  the  lawless  and  disreputable 
saloon,  because,  by  forcing  it  on  the  people,  they  hope 
eventually  to  convert  them  to  their  doctrine  concerning 
the  use  of  liquor  in  general.  They  have  had  sixty 
years  to  try  their  questionable  experiment  on  a  long- 
suffering  community.  Are  they  to  have  a  further 
sixty  years  or  more  to  continue  that  experiment  in 
face  of  the  emphatic  verdict  rendered  by  the  people 
that  its  effect  has  been  disastrous  and  pernicious  in 
the  extreme? 

This,  gentlemen,  I  respectfully  submit,  is  the  ques- 
tion which  you,  the  elected  delegates  of  the  people,  are 
called  upon  to  consider  in  this  convention.  It  is  not, 
as  I  well  know,  in  your  power  to  decide  that  question, 
but  it  is  in  your  hands  to  give  the  people  of  the  State, 
who  derive  that  deciding  power  from  you,  the  oppor- 
tunity of  exercising  it.  Three  years  ago  these  people 
expressed  in  large  numbers  their  disapproval  of  the 
unlicensed  saloon,  which  had  been  designedly  forced 
upon  them  by  the  prohibitionists,  by  voting  it  out  of 
existence.  These  same  people  have  now  overwhelm- 
ingly voted  the  unlicensed  saloon  back  again,  rather 
than  face,  in  the  illicit  dive  and  speak-easy,  the  still 
worse  conditions  which  they  were  just  as  designedly 
made  to  endure,  and  I  assert,  without  fear  of  honest 


Constitutional  License.  19.5 

contradiction,  that  they  have  done  so  because  they  rely 
upon  you  to  give  them  the  means  of  having  what  they 
want  under  the  best,  and  not  under  the  worst,  possible 
conditions.  In  other  words,  because  they  rely  upon 
you  to  give  them  the  opportunity  of  licensing  and  thus 
effectively  restricting  and  controlling  a  traffic  which 
they  both  need  and  desire. 

I  do  not  believe  that  they  have  placed  this  reliance 
upon  you  in  vain,  and  I  am  as  confident  that  you  will 
not  refuse  the  people  this  simple  privilege  of  choice 
which  they  are  asking  of  you  as  I  am  confident  that  the 
people,  when  they  exercise  that  privilege,  will  do  so 
sanely  and  sensibly,  and  with  that  intuitive  faculty  of 
discriminating,  in  the  light  of  actual  experience,  be- 
tween right  and  wrong,  and  between  good  and  evil, 
which,  though  it  is  unhappily  often  denied  to  the 
individual,  is  rarely  absent  in  the  people  as  a  whole. 
It  is  in  this  belief  that  we  ask  you  to  let  the  people 
itself  decide  this  question.  It  is  in  the  same  belief 
that  the  Anti- Saloon  League  is  demanding  of  you  not 
to  allow  the  people  to  decide  it ;  and  fearful  though  the 
fanatic  power  of  that  organization  has  become,  I  trust 
it  is  not  yet  greater  than  that  of  the  people  itself. 

As  for  those  whom  I  am  in  particular  privileged  to 
speak  for  here,  bear  in  mind  that,  in  asking  for  a 
license  law,  they  are  not  asking  for  greater  freedom, 
but  for  greater  restriction;  they  are  not  demanding  of 
you  a  privilege,  but  a  beneficent  protection,  both  to 


196  Constitutional  License. 

themselves  and  to  the  people  whom  they  serve.  License 
implies  restraint,  and  the  assertion  of  our  opponents 
that  it  not  only  means  unrestricted  liberty,  but  implies 
the  destruction  of  all  safeguards  hitherto  thrown 
around  the  liquor  traffic  is,  by  their  own  showing,  as 
false  as  it  is  insincere. 

Above  all,  gentlemen,  we  desire  a  condition  of  things 
that  will  absolve  us  from  the  necessity  of  engaging  in 
constant  political  warfare  for  the  purpose  of  saving 
our  existence  from  the  political  attacks  of  those  who 
are  seeking  to  destroy  it.  It  is  monstrous  that  the 
liquor  question  should  be  made  a  political  football  by 
these  elements,  who,  after  having  cast  the  ball  into  the 
political  arena,  try  to  make  the  people  believe  that  we 
are  responsible  for  its  presence  there.  It  is  monstrous 
that  large  and  honorable  industries  like  ours,  which 
are  recognized  by  all  civilized  governments,  including 
our  own,  towards  whose  maintenance  we  pay  more 
than  one-fourth  of  the  total  amount  contributed  by  the 
entire  citizenship  of  the  nation,  should  be  forced  to 
live  in  a  condition  of  constant  harassing  uncertainty, 
which  is  deliberately  created  and  maintained  by  adver- 
saries who  have  as  little  scruples  of  right  and  justice 
towards  us  as  they  have  consideration  for  the  rights 
and  the  moral  welfare  of  the  community,  whose  will 
they  are  determined  to  make  subservient  to  their  own. 
It  is  in  your  hands  to  take  the  first  step  towards  alter- 
ing that  condition,  and  remedying  the  damaging  effect 


Constitutional  License.  197 

it  has  had  upon  the  citizenship  at  large.  I  pray  that 
the  dictates  of  wisdom  and  justice  may  combine  in 
prevailing  upon  you  to  take  that  step. 


Argument  on  Proposed  License  Codes 

Before  the  Joint  Committee  of  the  General  Assembly 
of  Ohio,  Delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
January  20,  1913 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee: 

If  I  had  to  choose  a  text  upon  which  to  base  what 
I  am  privileged  to  say  to  you  on  the  subject  of  the 
two  license  bills  which  are  under  your  consideration, 
I  could,  I  think,  choose  no  more  fitting  text  than  the 
following  words,  contained  in  that  portion  of  the 
Governor's  recent  message  to  the  General  Assembly 
which  deals  with  the  question  of  licensing  the  liquor 
traffic. 

The  Governor  says  there: 

"If  the  license  plan  is  correct  in  theory,  it  is  entitled  to  a  test 
under  the  most  advantageous  auspices." 

It  would  scarcely  be  possible  to  place  two  construc- 
tions upon  the  meaning  of  these  words.  They  imply 
that,  since  the  people,  by  an  unmistakable  utterance, 
have  decided  for  the  principle  of  license,  this  legisla- 
ture should  so  frame  the  license  law  as  to  let  that  prin- 
ciple be  worked  out  in  practice  under  circumstances 
most  favorable  to  its  complete  success.  Now,  I  think 
you  will  agree  that  the  three  cardinal  objects  which 


Ohio  License  Code.  199 

are  sought  to  be  attained  by  a  system  of  license  are 
these : 

(1)  The  elimination  of  the  saloon  question  from 
politics,  so  far  as  such  elimination  may  be  possible. 

(2)  The  .limitation  of  the  number  of  saloons;  and 

(3)  The  restriction  of  the  saloon  business  to  per- 
sons of  law-abiding  tendencies  and  good  moral  char- 
acter and  habits. 

However  voluminous  a  license  code  may  be,  it  can, 
or  perhaps  I  ought  rather  to  say,  it  should,  contain 
nothing  which  upon  careful  analysis  does  not  tend  to 
promote  the  attainment  of  these  three  objects,  and 
nothing  more. 

The  question,  for  instance,  whether  the  use  of  alco- 
holic liquor  is  desirable  or  not  has  no  place  in  a  license 
code,  any  more  than  it  ought  to  have  a  place  in  this 
discussion.  It  would,  in  fact,  be  no  more  improper  to 
frame  a  license  code  in  such  a  way  as  to  promote  the 
sale  or  use  of  intoxicating  liquor  than  it  would  be  to 
frame  it  in  such  wise  as  to  promote  the  prohibition  of 
that  sale  or  use. 

Those  for  whom  I  have  the  honor  to  speak  here  have 
very  carefully  examined  the  bill,  known  as  H.  B.  No.  4, 
and  it  is  their  emphatic  opinion  that  the  requirements 
which  I  have  mentioned  as  being  vital  to  the  efficiency 
of  a  license  code  are  most  satisfactorily  met  in  that  bill. 
They  can  conceive,  for  instance,  of  no  more  effective 
way  of  taking  the  saloon  question  out  of  politics  than 


200  Ohio  License  Code. 

by  adopting  that  form  of  licensing  authority,  so  strong- 
ly recommended  by  the  Governor,  which  places  the 
appointing  power,  both  directly  and  indirectly,  in  the 
hands  of  one  man,  namely,  the  Governor  himself.  If 
you  will  contrast  for  one  moment  the  simple  machinery 
suggested  in  his  message  by  Governor  Cox,  and  pro- 
vided by  the  framers  of  House  Bill  No.  4,  with  the 
complicated  and  involved  method  of  multiple  election 
of  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  license  officers,  which  the 
Acker  bill  provides,  I  can  scarcely  believe  that  you 
will  hesitate  for  one  instant  in  your  choice  between 
the  two. 

The  Governor's  idea  requires  no  explaining,  because 
it  is  so  simple  that  it  explains  itself.  The  Governor  is 
to  appoint  a  bi-partisan  State  Board  of  three  men, 
who,  in  their  turn,  shall  appoint,  and  in  a  certain  meas- 
ure supervise  and  control  the  acts  of  the  local  or 
county  licensing  authorities.  All  these  authorities  are 
totally  independent  of  the  factional  fads  or  whims 
of  the  electorate,  either  local  or  otherwise,  and  are 
answerable  for  their  acts  to  no  one  but  the  Governor 
himself,  who,  by  virtue  of  his  power  to  appoint  and 
dismiss,  assumes  the  responsibility  for  those  acts  to- 
wards the  people  at  large. 

Could  anything  be  more  simple,  or  better  calculated 
to  prevent  the  injection  of  the  baneful  "wet  and  dry" 
controversy  into  the  license  question?  Compare  with 
this  simple  method  the  extraordinary  proposition  con- 


Ohio  License  Code.  201 

tained  in  the  proposed  Acker  code.  Not  only  is  it 
here  provided  that  every  license  officer  shall  be  voted 
for  at  the  polls,  but  that  there  shall  be  various  kinds 
of  votes  polled,  to-wit:  First  and  second  choice  votes, 
and  different  methods  of  counting  and  combining  these 
different  kinds  of  votes. 

Permit  me  to  read  to  you  the  rules  by  which  it  is 
proposed  that  the  election  judges  and  their  clerks  shall 
be  guided  in  determining  the  result  of  this  novel  com- 
plicated system  of  polling  votes. 

The  Acker  code  provides  as  follows,  page  2,  line  28 : 

"(a)  If  any  candidate  for  an  office  receives  a  majority  of  the 
first  choice  votes  he  shall  be  declared  elected  for  such  office. 

"(6)  If  no  candidate  is  thus  elected,  drop  the  name  of  the 
one  having  the  least  number  of  first  choice  votes  and  add  the  second 
choice  votes  cast  by  his  supporters  to  the  first  choice  votes  of  the 
remaining  candidates  for  whom  they  were  cast. 

"(c)  If  no  candidate  then  has  a  majority,  drop  from  the  remain- 
ing candidates  the  one  having  the  least  number  of  votes  then  to 
his  credit,  and  add  the  second  choice  votes  cast  by  his  supporters 
to  the  votes  of  the  remaining  candidates  for  whom  they  were  cast. 

"(d)  Repeat  this  operation  until  some  candidate  has  a  majority 
or  until  only  two  candidates  remain.  The  one  then  having  the 
greatest  number  of  votes  to  his  credit  shall  be  declared  elected. 

"(e)  No  second  choice  vote  shall  be  counted  when  it  is  cast  for  a 
candidate  whose  name  shall  have  been  dropped  as  herein  provided. 

"(/)     Any  tie  shall  be  decided  by  lot  by  the  candidates." 

I  am  constrained  to  say  that  the  first  three  of  these 
clauses  read  very  much  like  those  deadly  arithmetical 
puzzles  that  worried  us  all  so  much  in  our  schoolboy 


202  Ohio  License  Code. 

days,  such  as  the  famous  problem:  If  a  cat  and  a  half 
can  devour  a  rat  and  a  half  in  a  minute  and  a  half, 
how  many  cats  will  be  able  to  devour  four  and  three- 
quarter  rats  in  ten  and  three-sevenths  minutes? 

I  am  frank  to  say,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  I  would 
rather  have  to  solve  that  riddle  than  be  compelled  to 
find  the  answer  to  the  abstruse  puzzle  presented  in  the 
three  first  of  the  clauses  I  have  just  read.  The  fourth 
clause,  which  says,  "Repeat  this  operation,"  etc.,  re- 
minds one  vividly  of  a  medical  prescription,  while  the 
last  clause,  which  provides  that  "Any  tie  shall  be  de- 
cided by  lot  by  the  candidates,"  would  pass  very  credit- 
ably as  an  excerpt  from  the  rules  of  the  gambling 
table  at  Monte  Carlo. 

Gentlemen,  surely  the  intricacies  of  the  differential 
calculus  are  mere  child's  play  compared  with  the  occult 
mysticism  of  this  algebraic  system  of  vote-counting. 

In  other  respects,  if  I  may  venture  to  say  so,  the 
author  of  this  code  has  not  been  as  careful  in  clothing 
his  real  meaning  in  the  language  of  mystery.  I  will 
read,  if  I  may,  a  few  clauses  in  this  strange  license 
code,  in  which  the  intention  of  that  code  to  prohibit, 
rather  than  license  and  regulate,  the  sale  of  liquor  is 
so  thinly  veiled  that  no  mistake  about  it  is  possible. 

Under  the  provisions  for  application  for  license,  page 
6,  line  130,  the  code  says: 

"In  determining  which  applicant  shall  have  the  precedence  in 
securing  a  license  .  .  .  those  applicants  concerning  whom  com- 


Ohio  License  Code.  208 

plaint  has  been  made  of  their  violating  the  law,  or  operating  dis- 
orderly places,  shall  have  no  precedence  over  any  new  applicant 
for  license  at  any  time  when  applications  are  granted." 

This  means,  in  effect,  that  the  mere  lodging  of  a 
complaint  against  a  saloonkeeper,  whether  such  com- 
plaint be  justified  or  not,  shall  suffice  to  put  him  out 
of  business  in  case  there  shall  be  any  new  applicants 
for  license  at  the  time  he  comes  up  for  renewal  of  his 
license.  By  the  very  simple  process  of  lodging  com- 
plaints against  any  one  who  enters  the  business  from 
term  to  term,  it  is  evident  that  very  soon  all  applicants 
for  license  will  be  placed  in  the  same  category  of 
ineligibles. 

On  page  6,  line  139,  the  code  says: 

"The  phrase,  'person  of  good  moral  character,'  as  used  in  the 
act,  shall  be  construed  to  mean  a  person  who  has  not  sold  within 
the  past  year  intoxicating  liquor  to  minors,  drunkards,  or  persons 
in  the  habit  of  getting  intoxicated,  or  to  those  concerning  whom  he 
has  been  notified  that  others  are  dependent  upon  them  for  support." 

How  many  customers  would  remain  to  the  saloon- 
keeper if  all  those  upon  whom  others  are  dependent 
for  support  were  to  be  eliminated?  The  author  of  the 
code  realizes  that  there  might  still  be  a  few  left,  and 
he  provides  shrewdly  for  the  elimination  of  even  these 
few  by  the  following  clause,  page  7,  line  147,  where  the 
code  provides: 

"A  notice  filed  with  the  mayor  or  clerk  of  the  township  trustees 
on  the  first  Monday  in  each  month  shall  be  sufficient  to  liquor 
dealers  ten  days  thereafter  not  to  sell  intoxicating  liquor  to  the 
persons  whose  names  are  set  forth  in  that  notice." 


204  Ohio  License  Code. 

Could  anything  be  more  comprehensively  sweeping? 
All  that  is  needed  under  this  clause  is  for  some  one 
to  procure  a  list  of  the  citizens  of  the  State  of  Ohio, 
and  ten  days  after  such  list  has  been  filed  with  the 
mayor  and  township  trustees,  all  the  saloonkeepers  of 
the  State  will  have  to  close  their  doors,  because  no  one 
will  be  left  in  the  State  to  whom  he  is  privileged  to  sell 
his  goods. 

Again,  on  page  9,  line  220,  it  is  provided: 

"License  for  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  shall  not  be  granted 
in  territory  in  which  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquor  is,  or  is  hereafter, 
prohibited,  and  shall  be  confined  to  the  most  efficiently  policed 
parts  of  the  municipality  or  township." 

Assuming,  for  argument's  sake,  that  there  are  parts 
of  a  municipality  which  are  less  efficiently  policed  than 
others,  there  must  needs  be  one  part  which  is  the  least 
efficiently  policed.  In  that  case,  all  other  parts  of  the 
municipality  must  be  more  efficiently  policed,  and  then 
the  puzzling  question  arises:  How  many  and  which 
of  these  more  efficiently  policed  parts  of  the  munici- 
pality are  to  be  considered  the  most  efficiently  policed 
parts  ? 

The  clause  under  review  goes  on  as  follows: 

"No  license  shall  be  granted  in  a  purely  residential,  or  in  manu- 
facturing portions  of  a  city  qr  municipality,  or  within  300  feet  from 
any  church  edifice,  or  public  or  parochial  school  house." 

Would  it  not  be  more  simple  and  concise  to  say: 
"No  license  shall  be  granted  within  two  feet  of  any- 
where?" It  is  notorious  that  practical  prohibition  of 


Ohio  License  Code.  205 

the  liquor  traffic  was  imposed  upon  the  State  of  Ten- 
nessee by  a  provision  reading  very  much  like  this  one. 
In  order  to  make  assurance  doubly  sure,  however, 
the  clause  proceeds,  on  page  10,  line  225,  as  follows: 

"Such  license  shall  not  be  granted  in  those  parts  of  a  munici- 
pality where  it  is  apparent  that  the  party  applying  for  it  is  seeking 
to  obtain  patronage  from  adjoining  'no  license'  territory." 

In  other  words,  the  declaring  of  a  territory  "dry" 
shall  also  have  the  effect  of  making  the  adjoining  terri- 
tory "dry,"  with  what  result  throughout  the  State  it  is 
scarcely  necessary  for  me  to  explain.  In  short,  com- 
plete prohibition  is  provided  for  in  this  code  in  so 
many  ways  that,  if  one  were  to  prove  ineffective, 
innumerable  others  could  be  relied  upon  to  accomplish 
the  object  sought. 

Mr.  Chairman,  the  Acker  code  bristles  with  this  kind 
of — what  shall  I  call  it? — prohibitory  license,  or  li- 
censed prohibition.  All  the  rest  of  the  code  is  superflu- 
ous in  face  of  these  clauses,  for,  thanks  to  them,  there 
would  be  no  saloonkeepers  to  license,  and  consequently 
no  saloon  to  regulate.  Now,  I  respectfully  submit 
that,  in  view  of  the  mandate  of  the  people  demanding 
the  license  of  the  liquor  traffic,  and  imposing  upon  the 
legislature  the  task  of  carrying  out  that  mandate,  it  is 
not  competent  to  consider  the  adoption  of  a  license 
code,  which,  on  the  face  of  it,  plainly  seeks  to  nullify  the 
expressed  desires  of  the  people,  and  which  would  result, 
not  in  the  regulation  of  the  saloon,  which  the  people 


206  Ohio  License  Code. 

have  voted  for,  but  in  the  destruction  of  the  saloon, 
which  the  people  have  not  voted  for. 

Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  revert  again  to  House  Bill 
No.  4,  which  the  interests  I  represent  fully  endorse 
and  approve,  it  may  be  proper  to  dwell  for  a  moment 
upon  the  amendment  to  the  constitution,  in  obedience 
to  which  that  bill  has  been  drawn.  I  believe  that  no 
existing  constitution  contains  such  explicit  and  specific 
directions  as  to  the  character  of  the  license  law,  the 
drafting  of  which  it  not  only  authorizes,  but  commands, 
as  does  the  present  constitution  of  the  State  of  Ohio. 
The  framers  of  House  Bill  No.  4  have  adhered  with 
religious  strictness  to  those  directions,  and  have  ampli- 
fied and  added  to  them  wherever  it  seemed  necessary 
to  do  so  in  order  to  give  fuller  effect  to  the  intent  and 
meaning  of  the  constitutional  provision.  Bear  in 
mind  that  every  regulatory  or  prohibitory  law  which 
is  now  in  effect,  or  which  may  in  future  be  enacted,  is 
by  this  constitutional  provision  made  practically  part 
and  parcel  of  the  license  code.  These  laws,  as  you 
know,  are  legion,  but  their  effectiveness  under  the 
present  tax  system,  with  its  unrestricted,  or  unrestrict- 
able,  right  to  all  and  any  to  engage  in  the  liquor  traffic 
has,  as  we  all  know,  been  deplorably  incomplete,  owing 
mainly  to  the  fact  that  the  grossest  and  most  persistent 
law  violators  could  not  be  prevented  from  entering  the 
business  and  engaging  in  it  again  and  again,  in  spite 
of  all  the  statutes  providing  for  the  punishment  of  their 


Ohio  License  Code.  207 

delinquencies.  The  license  law  which  you  have  before 
you  in  House  Bill  No.  4  will  alter  all  this,  for  by  a 
simple  constitutional  proviso,  which  is  incorporated  in 
amplified  form  in  that  code,  it  has  actually  become 
part  of  the  basic  law  of  this  State  that  a  repeated 
conviction  for  violation  of  any  present  or  future 
statutes  regulating  the  liquor  traffic  shall  not  only 
revoke,  ipso  facto,  the  license  of  the  offender,  but  shall 
forever  bar  the  offender  from  again  engaging  in  that 
traffic.  Do  not  forget,  therefore,  that  this  license  code,  in 
addition  to  the  life  which  it  proposes  to  give  to  its  own 
specific  provisions,  will  infuse  new  life  into  innumerable 
laws  which  for  years  have  been  ineffective,  because  the 
penalty  attached  to  their  violation  did  not,  and  could 
not,  include  the  forfeiture  of  the  right  of  the  offender 
to  continue  in  business,  which  means,  of  course,  the 
forfeiture  of  the  opportunity  to  offend  again. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  beg  to  conclude  with  a  reference 
to  two  terse  clauses  in  the  bill  known  as  H.  B.  No.  4, 
which,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  existing  laws 
regulating  the  liquor  traffic,  contain  the  meat  of  this 
whole  license  code,  so  far  as  the  regulation  of  the  saloon 
is  concerned,  and  which  no  additions,  if  you  added 
volumes  of  them,  could  render  more  comprehensive  or 
effective. 

The  one  is  the  first  short  sentence  under  the  head  of 
"Qualification  for  License,"  page  8,  line  179,  which 
reads  as  follows: 


208  Ohio  License  Code. 

"License  shall  not  be  granted  to  a  person  who  is  not  a  citizen 
of  the  United  States,  or  who  is  not  of  good  moral  character." 

The  other  is  the  second  paragraph  under  the  head 
of  "What  shall  be  offenses,"  page  22,  line  542,  which 
reads  as  follows: 

"If  any  licensee  is  more  than  once  convicted  for  a  violation 
of  the  laws  in  force  to  regulate  the  traffic  in  intoxicating  liquors,, 
his  license  shall  be  deemed  revoked,  and  no  license  shall  thereupon 
be  granted  to  him." 

The  first  mentioned  clause,  I  submit,  gives  the 
licensing  authorities  the  widest  possible  discretion  in 
dealing  with  applications  for  license,  inasmuch  as  it, 
in  effect,  places  upon  the  applicant  for  a  license,  at  the 
will  of  the  licensing  authorities,  the  burden  of  proof 
that  he  is  a  person  of  good  moral  character.  I  say  it 
does  this  at  the  will  of  the  licensing  authorities,  be- 
cause they  need  only  refuse  to  license  an  applicant 
upon  the  ground  that  he  is  not,  in  their  opinion,  a 
person  of  good  moral  character,  in  order  to  immediately 
place  upon  him  the  burden  of  proving  that  he  is. 

The  second  mentioned  clause  is  the  one  which,  as 
I  have  said,  practically  and  in  effect  incorporates  every 
existing  law,  including  the  drastic  Dean  Character  law, 
in  the  license  code,  and  therefore  renders  the  licensee 
dependent  for  the  procuring  and  the  retention  of  his 
license  upon  his  obedience  to  those  laws.  If  this  code 
contained  nothing  else  but  these  two  clauses,  excepting, 
of  course,  its  administrative  provisions,  and  excepting 
the  important  provision  limiting  the  number  of  saloons, 


Ohio  License  Code.  209 

it  would  be  as  comprehensive,  as  effective  and  as 
drastic  a  license  code  as  the  strongest  and  most  un- 
compromising advocate  of  strict  regulation  could 
desire. 

We  are  in  favor  of  the  strictest  possible  kind  of  regu- 
lation compatible  with  justice  and  fairness,  but  we 
are  not  in  favor  of  provisions  which,  under  the  guise 
of  regulation,  are  intended  as  a  means  of  harassing  and 
persecuting  the  saloonkeeper  and  eventually  handing 
him  over,  bound  hand  and  foot,  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  his  declared  enemies.  It  is  our  belief,  and  I  think 
what  I  have  cited  to  you  to-night  must  have  convinced 
you,  that  this  is  the  aim  and  intention  of  the  Acker 
Code,  which,  if  the  statement  in  the  press  may  be 
believed,  is  the  official  code  proposed  by  those  who  are 
unchangeably  opposed  to  license,  who  made  the  most 
strenuous  campaign  against  license,  and  who,  if  they 
are  consistent — and  who  can  doubt  that  they  are? — 
are  now  solely  interested  in  making  license  a  failure. 
The  code  presented  in  H.  B.  No.  4,  on  the  contrary, 
as  I  think  you  are  well  aware,  has  been  drafted  by 
those  who  favor  the  license  system  -and  whose  para- 
mount interest  lies  in  making  that  system  a  success, 
and,  therefore,  acceptable  to  the  people  who  voted 
for  it  in  such  overwhelming  numbers.  Can  you  hesi- 
tate for  a  moment  in  deciding  which  of  the  two  codes 
is  most  honestly  aiming  to  carry  out  the  will  of  the 
people,  and  which,  from  the  very  nature  of  its  origin, 


210  Ohio  License  Code. 

is  most  likely  to  contain  the  all-important  element  of 
success?  Let  me  close,  Mr.  Chairman,  by  repeating 
the  words  of  the  Governor,  which  I  quoted  at  the  outset 
of  my  remarks: 

"If  the  license  plan  is  correct  in  theory,  it  is  entitled  to  a  test 
under  the  most  advantageous  auspices." 

These  are  words  of  wisdom,  which  remove  this  ques- 
tion from  the  atmosphere  of  factional  differences  and 
controversial  strife.  May  they  be  ever  present  in  your 
minds,  gentlemen,  while  you  are  deliberating  upon  this 
momentous  matter  which  has  been  entrusted  to  your 
care. 


Address  Delivered  at  the  Annual 
Banquet  of  the  Alumni  Association 
of  the  Wahl-Henius  Institute 

Hotel  Stratford,  Chicago,  March  28,  1913 

Mr.    Chairman: 

I  can  scarcely  imagine  a  pleasanter  task  than  that 
which  you  have  assigned  to  me,  and  which,  if  I  under- 
stand it  rightly,  is  to  welcome,  on  behalf  of  those  who 
represent  the  brewing  industry  of  the  present  day,  the 
men  who  are  destined  to  represent  the  brewing  indus- 
try of  future  days. 

In  doing  this,  and  in  adding  to  that  welcome — the 
heartiest  I  can  express  in  language — a  few  words  of 
serious  comment  upon  the  responsibilities  and  duties 
that  await  you  gentlemen  in  the  sphere  of  activity 
which  you  have  chosen,  I  want  to  assure  you  that  I  am 
deeply  conscious  of  my  own  limitations,  and  that,  while 
I  may  claim  to  speak  with  the  authority  of  some  experi- 
ence about  certain  important  phases  of  the  industry 
you  are  about  to  enter,  I  am  fully  aware  that  there 
are  many  phases  of  that  industry  which  you,  who  come 
fresh  from  its  chief  seat  of  learning,  are  far  more 
competent  to  discuss  than  I  am. 


212  Address  to  the  Alumni. 

But  you  will  no  doubt  find,  or  perhaps  you  have 
already  found,  that  there  are  more  branches  of  knowl- 
edge in  our  great  industry  than  any  one  man  can  hope 
to  be  proficient  in  at  one  time.  In  fact,  I  could  liken 
the  workers  in  that  industry  to  nothing  better  than  the 
citizens  of  a  nation,  each  of  whom  is  called  upon  to 
perform  his  allotted  or  chosen  part  in  accomplishing 
the  upbuilding  and  the  maintenance  of  the  great 
national  fabric,  and  in  doing  so  satisfies  his  own  per- 
sonal ambitions  and  erects  his  own  particular  abode, 
or  maybe  his  little  hall  of  fame,  within  the  greater 
structure  he  helps  to  build.  But  while  each  citizen  has 
of  necessity  a  different  share  to  perform  in  the  compli- 
cated task  of  building  that  greater  structure,  there  is 
one  task  and  one  duty  which  he  shares  equally  with 
every  other  citizen,  and  that  is  the  task  and  the  duty 
of  defending  it  and  upholding  its  honor  and  dignity 
at  any  sacrifice  against  those  who  may  seek  to  over- 
throw or  destroy  it.  Every  citizen  of  our  great 
republic,  whatever  his  calling,  and  however  humble 
or  exalted  his  station,  is  potentially  a  defender  of  that 
great  republic,  and  equally  responsible  with  his  neigh- 
bor for  its  prestige  among  the  nations  of  the  world; 
and  by  prestige  I  mean  not  only  that  which  is  ex- 
pressed in  dollars  and  cents,  but  that  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  regard  as  generally  synonymous  with 
the  term  "American  citizenship,"  namely,  the  acknowl- 
edged leadership  of  the  world  in  all  that  makes  both 


Address  to  the  Alumni.  213 

for  material  progress  and  for  the  advancement  of  the 
higher  purposes  of  our  human  civilization. 

Gentlemen,  there  is  no  difference,  excepting  that 
of  degree,  between  the  duty  we  owe  to  the  nation  of 
which  we  form  part  and  the  duty  we  owe  to  the 
industry  to  which  we  belong,  and  it  is  this  particular 
thing  that  I  wish  to  lay  close  to  your  hearts  to-night; 
that,  no  matter  what  positions  you  may  be  destined  to 
occupy  in  that  industry,  whether  the  position  of 
owner,  manager,  foreman,  or  any  less  responsible 
post,  you  are  all  equally  responsible  for  the  dignity 
and  standing  of  the  industry  among  the  community  at 
large,  and  you  should  uphold  and  guard  and  defend 
that  dignity  and  standing  as  jealously  as  you  uphold 
and  defend  the  honor  of  the  country  which  is  the  pride 
of  us  all. 

I  know  that  it  may  seem  unusual  for  me  to  sound 
as  serious  a  note  as  this  on  an  occasion  like  the  present 
one.  But  we  brewers  are  living  in  serious  times,  and, 
coming  as  I  do  from  the  ranks  of  those  whom  chance 
or  perhaps  predilection  has  thrown  into  the  thick  of 
the  battle  of  our  industry  with  its  fanatical  foes,  it  is 
only  natural  that  I  should  rather  fall  into  the  tone  of 
those  who  gather  around  the  campfire  than  tune  my 
thoughts  to  the  lighter  and  brighter  key  that  prevails 
among  those  who  are  comfortably  seated  around  the 
domestic  hearth. 

But  let  me  emphasize  this.     I  am  speaking  to  you 


214  Address  to  the  Alumni. 

as  an  optimist,  not  as  a  pessimist,  and  what  I  have 
said  and  am  going  to  say  is  not  said  for  the  purpose 
of  lessening  the  enthusiasm  with  which  you  are  enter- 
ing upon  your  chosen  career,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
for  the  purpose  of  increasing  that  enthusiasm. 

I  am  telling  you,  in  short,  that  if  you  take  yourselves 
and  the  business  you  have  chosen  seriously,  you  must 
be  prepared,  not  for  a  life  of  unbroken  ease  and  com- 
fort and  mere  humdrum  accomplishment,  but  a  life 
of  serious  struggle,  involving  all  those  possibilities  of 
real  achievement  that  appeal  so  enticingly  to  strong, 
active  manhood.  It  is  the  old,  old  struggle  against 
the  forces  of  ignorance  and  folly,  of  hypocrisy  and 
humbug.  In  our  case,  however,  in  accordance  perhaps 
with  the  instinct  of  modern  days,  these  forces  have 
been  organized  into  a  great  commercial  trust,  known 
as  the  Anti- Saloon  League,  which  is  controlled  by  and 
run  for  the  benefit  of  a  choice,  enterprising  few,  who, 
it  is  amusing  to  reflect,  derive  their  livelihood  from  the 
same  source  as  we  do,  namely,  the  brewing  and  its 
allied  industries.  Only  these  men  live  upon  those 
industries  as  parasites,  eating  their  way  through  some 
local  sore  on  the  body  into  the  healthy  flesh,  which 
they  seek  to  infect  with  the  poison  they  have  carried 
from  the  sore,  so  that  they  may  thereby  produce  fresh 
profitable  soil  to  feed  and  fatten  upon. 

In  case  you  should  think  that  I  am  using  unduly 
strong  language,  let  me  hasten  to  say  that  I  am  merely 


Address  to  the  Alumni,  215 

echoing  in  this  language  the  opinion  which  is  held  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Anti- Saloon  League  by  their  brother 
fanatics,  the  prohibitionists.  And  who  should  know 
and  judge  the  fanatic  better  than  his  fellow-fanatic? 
Let  us  trust  that  the  respect  which  the  one  manifests 
for  the  other  may  be  mutual,  and  that  it  may  gradually 
communicate  itself  to  the  people  at  large,  whom  they 
are  both  duping  and  despoiling. 

But  meanwhile  the  struggle,  so  far  as  we  are  con- 
cerned, goes  on,  waxing  from  year  to  year  more  stren- 
uous, and  it  is  in  this  struggle  that  you  gentlemen 
will  have  to  take  part,  engaging  in  it,  not  as  mere 
mercenaries  fighting  in  return  for  a  day's  wage,  but 
as  men  defending  a  great  principle  and  championing 
an  honest  and  righteous  cause. 

There  is  no  need  for  me  to  tell  you  that,  ever  since 
the  doctrine  of  temperance  has  been  preached  among 
men,  no  greater  agency  for  the  spread  of  that  doctrine, 
and  no  more  effective  promoter  of  true,  practical  tem- 
perance has  arisen  in  the  world  than  the  brewing  in- 
dustry. But  there  is  need  for  me  to  tell  you  that  the 
first  and  most  forceful  illustration  of  this  truth  must 
be  given  by  those  who  represent  that  industry,  and 
who  should  therefore  be  the  chief  exponents  of  its 
influence  in  the  direction  I  have  indicated. 

I  am  not  saying  this  to  you  as  a  preacher  of  morals, 
for  I  have  neither  the  inclination  nor  the  presumption 
to  set  myself  up  as  a  teacher  of  my  fellow-men  on 


Address  to  the  Alumni. 


these  subjects.  I  am  saying  it  as  a  simple,  practical 
business  man,  and  as  one  who  knows  the  character  of 
the  enemy  that  is  assailing  us,  and  the  utter  scorn  for 
truth  and  justice  which  is  the  salient  feature  of  that 
character. 

To  him  all  men,  including  himself,  are  potentially 
drunkards  and  libertines.  He  does  not  appear  to 
know,  as  every  well-informed  man  knows,  that  the 
excessive  indulgence  of  the  appetites,  wherever  it  still 
shows  itself  in  the  human  race,  is  a  relic  of  man's 
animal  origin.  Yet  he  need  only  look  at  the  habits 
of  the  wild  beasts  of  the  field  and  the  jungle  to  realize 
that  fact.  He  forgets,  or  pretends  to  forget,  that 
man  has  risen,  and  is  still  rising,  above  this  inherent 
weakness  of  all  animal  nature,  not  by  compulsion  of 
law,  or  by  the  coercion  of  his  superiors,  but  by  reason 
of  the  exercise  of  his  God-given  individual  free  will, 
his  power  of  self-control,  and  by  those  higher  faculties 
which  religion  and  culture  have  developed  in  him.  It 
is  just  one  of  the  main  differences  that  distinguish 
man  from  his  dogs  and  his  swine  and  his  other  domestic 
cattle  that,  while  their  grosser  appetites  can  only  be 
restrained  by  brute  force,  he  has  learned  to  curb  his 
own  by  dint  of  his  individual  will  and  intelligence.  Is 
it  not  the  strangest  of  ironies  that  it  should  have  been 
left  to  those  who  pose  as  the  uplifters  of  our  race  and 
as  our  moral  guardians  to  attempt  to  thrust  man  back 
once  more  into  the  same  class  with  his  dogs  and  his 


Address  to  the  Alumni.  217 

swine,  and  by  applying  to  him  the  same  methods  that 
are  applied  to  them  to  deprive  him  of  the  power  and 
the  right  to  continue  exercising  the  individual  free  will 
and  intelligence  which  alone  have  lifted  him  so  im- 
measurably above  them? 

There  is,  of  course,  no  necessity  to  dilate  here  upon 
the  inevitable  result  of  such  attempts,  wherever  they 
have  succeeded.  If  you  confine  the  sanest  man  living 
in  a  lunatic  asylum,  and  treat  him  as  one  demented,  he 
is  liable  to  become  a  lunatic.  If  you  restrain  men  as 
you  restrain  dogs  and  swine,  and  treat  them  as  such, 
you  are  liable  to  reduce  them  to  the  level  of  those 
beasts.  Our  prohibition  states  afford  only  too  many 
sad  evidences  of  the  truth  of  this  fact. 

I  cherish  the  hope  that  the  day  is  not  far  distant 
when  the  people  of  this  country  will  uprise  in  their 
wrath  against  this  intolerable  interference  with  their 
freedom  of  will  and  their  right  of  individual  conscience, 
and  when  they  will  say  to  their  tyrannical  oppressors: 
"Since  we  have  become  the  men  we  are  today,  rising 
from  the  level  of  the  lower  order  of  creation,  by  the 
free  exercise  of  those  higher  faculties  with  which  the 
Creator  has  endowed  us,  in  distinction  from  the  rest 
of  His  creatures,  you  shall  not  deprive  us  of  the  right 
to  exercise  those  faculties,  on  the  foolish  pretense 
that,  by  thus  forcing  us  back  again  to .  the  level  of 
the  lower  beasts,  you  will  eventually  make  angels  of 


us." 


218  Address  to  the  Alumni. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  part  of  the  task  that  awaits  you, 
and  indeed  the  most  important  part  of  that  task,  to 
help  in  awakening  the  people  to  a  sense  of  this  degra- 
dation to  which  they  are  being  subjected,  and  to  do 
so  by  every  means  in  your  power;  by  precept  and 
practice,  by  argument  and  reason,  and  above  all,  by 
individual  example  demonstrating  that  particular  fac- 
ulty of  the  human  intelligence  which  manifests  itself 
pre-eminently  in  moderation  and  self-control. 

May  you  succeed  in  accomplishing  this  task,  not 
only  for  the  sake  of  the  industry  which  is  our  pride, 
but  for  the  sake  of  the  cause  of  justice  and  freedom, 
which  is  common  to  all  men,  and  for  the  sake  of 
yourselves  and  your  children,  who  will  all  be  the 
better  men  and  the  better  citizens  for  the  triumph 
of  that  cause. 

And  so  let  me  bid  God-speed  to  you,  one  and  all, 
and  let  me  wish  for  you  the  future  fulfillment  of  your 
present  desires,  and  the  future  desiring  of  new  and 
better  things  built  upon  the  fulfillment  of  the  old. 
May  the  life  that  is  before  you  be  replete  with  the 
alternate  fullness  of  toil  and  harvest,  and,  when  in 
due  course  the  evening  of  that  life  draws  near,  may 
it  bring  you  the  crowning  reward  of  all  well-spent 
endeavor;  that  sense  of  things  achieved,  Jn  which  the 
true  man  finds  his  only  real  and  abiding  satisfaction, 
and  which  he  leaves  as  the  most  precious  heritage  to 
those  who  come  after  him. 


Why  a  Brewer  is  Proud  of  his  Business 

Address  delivered  at  a  Farewell  Banquet  tendered  to 
the  Hon.  Charles  J.  Vopicka,  Minister  Plenipo- 
tentiary to  Bulgaria,  Servia  and  the  Balkan  States, 
October  11,  1913 

Mr.  Toastmaster  and  Gentlemen: 

I  esteem  it  quite  an  exceptional  privilege  to  be  one 
of  those  selected  to  convey  to  our  distinguished  guest 
this  evening  some  expression  of  that  feeling  of  regard 
and  friendship  which  we  all  entertain  for  him  as  a 
valued  colleague  and  comrade,  and  of  that  sense  of 
gratification  which  must  inspire  every  one  of  us  at 
the  thought  of  the  high  honor  which  has  been  con- 
ferred upon  him  by  those  who  rule  the  destinies  of 
our  great  nation.  It  is  the  bestowal  of  that  signal 
honor  upon  one  so  closely  associated  with  us  as  Mr. 
Vopicka  has  been  which  is  the  especial  occasion  of  this 
festive  gathering  tonight,  and  I  am  sure  that  our 
distinguished  guest  himself  will  be  the  last  to  mis- 
interpret my  meaning  when  I  say  that  the  public 
significance  of  his  appointment  to  represent  this  nation 
at  the  seats  of  great  European  governments  is,  even 
to  us,  his  personal  friends  and  associates,  of  far 


220  Hon.  C.  J.  Fopicka. 

greater  weight  and  moment  than  the  private  signifi- 
cance attaching  to  the  fact  that  he  who  has  been 
selected  for  that  appointment  happens  to  be  a  friend 
and  associate  of  ours. 

I  believe  it  was  Napoleon  who  called  England  a 
nation  of  shopkeepers,  and  far  from  resenting  the 
appellation,  England  has  always  been  proud  of  it. 
America,  as  we  all  know,  is  pre-eminently  a  commer- 
cial nation,  and  her  recognition  as  such  by  the  great 
powers  of  the  earth  is  a  fact  to  which  she  too  has 
every  reason  to  point  with  pride.  Commerce  today 
rules  the  world,  and  dictates  the  policies  and  directs 
the  affairs  of  all  nations.  It  was  not  always  so. 
Within  even  my  recollection  the  time  was  when  the 
governing  powers  of  continental  Europe  looked  with 
the  contempt  of  ignorance  and  arrogance  upon  those 
who  were  even  then  building  up  the  great  industries 
which  constitute  at  this  day  the  very  foundation  upon 
which  their  influence  and  prestige  rest.  The  fact  that 
a  man  was  engaged  in  commercial  pursuits  was  in 
those  days  an  effectual  bar  to  the  favor  of  rulers 
and  governments,  and  all  those  who  administered  the 
affairs  of  the  peoples  of  the  earth. 

All  very  foolish,  of  course,  to  our  modern  notions. 
And  yet,  even  then,  there  was  one  notable  exception, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  dwell  upon  that  exception  on 
this  particular  occasion. 

Though  the  rulers  of  the  nations  of  the  old  world 


Hon.  C.  J.  Fopicka.  221 

regarded  industrial  pursuits  as  a  whole  as  beneath 
their  attention,  there  was  one  industry  which  they 
considered  it  not  derogatory  to  their  dignity  to  engage 
in  themselves,  and  that  was  the  brewing  industry.  I 
need  only  point,  in  proof  of  what  I  say,  to  the  rulers 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Bavaria,  who  for  centuries  have 
operated  one  of  the  most  famous  breweries  of  the 
world,  and  who  to  this  day  conduct  in  their  own  name 
one  of  the  foremost  "brewery-owned"  saloons  on  the 
continent  of  Europe;  or  to  the  Prince  of  Fursten- 
berg,  another  fellow-brewer  of  ours,  and  incidentally 
the  most  intimate  friend  of  the  German  Kaiser,  who, 
by  the  way,  has  been  recently  heralded  by  ignorant 
people  in  this  country  as  an  enemy  of  beer,  whereas 
the  real  fact  is  that  a  specially  fine  brew  of  beer, 
known  as  the  Emperor's  Table  Beer,  is  manufactured 
and  supplied  to  his  Majesty's  household  by  this  very 
brewer,  Prince  Furstenberg;  or  again,  to  the  Baron 
Speck  von  Sternburg,  the  scion  of  a  famous  family 
of  German  brewers,  whom  the  Kaiser  selected  as  his 
own  Ambassador  to  this  country ;  and  indeed  many 
others.  In  fact,  members  of  the  brewing  fraternity 
in  Europe  occupy  honored  places  in  the  councils  of 
most  European  governments.  The  greatest  man,  by 
common  consent,  as  a  citizen,  administrator,  and  public 
benefactor  in  Denmark  is  a  brewer,  and  from  no  other 
industry  have  so  many  men  been  elevated  to  the 
highest  dignity  in  the  gift  of  the  British  Crown  as 


222  Hon.  C.  J.  Fopicka. 

there  have  been  from  the  brewing  industry  of  the 
United  Kingdom. 

I  merely  cite  these  examples,  gentlemen,  and  I 
could  cite  many  more,  in  order  to  illustrate  the  fact 
that,  in  selecting  a  man  from  the  ranks  of  our  industry 
to  represent  this  country  abroad,  our  government  has 
not  unwisely,  and  certainly  very  gracefully  and  tact- 
fully, chosen  one  who,  in  addition  to  his  general  fitness 
to  occupy  an  ambassadorial  office,  brings  with  him  to 
that  office,  just  by  reason  of  his  association  with  the 
brewing  industry,  those  peculiar  qualifications  of  per- 
sonal environment  which  accord  with  the  thought,  the 
taste  and  the  social  predilections  of  those  very  leaders 
of  the  world's  affairs  whom  it  will  be  his  duty  to  meet 
as  his  country's  representative. 

It  would  be  almost  amusing  in  this  connection,  if 
it  were  not  so  pathetic,  to  reflect  upon  the  circum- 
stance that  certain  elements  among  our  citizenship, 
whose  colossal  ignorance  of  everything  outside  the 
sphere  of  their  own  limited  experience  is  only  matched 
by  the  extraordinary  effrontery  with  which  they  at- 
tempt to  impose  their  dwarfish  and  intemperate  views 
upon  the  nation  at  large,  actually  entered  a  noisy 
protest  against  the  appointment  of  our  guest  as 
this  country's  representative  abroad,  on  the  absurd 
ground  that  he  is  a  brewer. 

I  said  the  reflection  was  pathetic,  and  this  is  the 
only  reason  why  I  dwell  upon  it  here.  I  have  no 


Hon.  C.  J.  Fopicka.  223 

quarrel  with  the  deplorably  intemperate  element  of 
our  citizenship  to  which  I  referred.  It  exists,  and 
has  existed,  in  all  countries,  and  in  all  times,  and 
belongs  as  distinctly  to  the  abnormal  class  of  nature's 
creation  as,  for  instance,  do  those  among  us  who 
are  liable  to  the  physical  weakness  of  intemperance 
in  drink,  or  to  other  similar  incontinencies  which  science 
has  long  ago  discovered  to  be  symptomatic  of  cerebral 
disturbance.  The  men  who  constitute  that  element 
are  moral  inebriates,  and  should  invoke  our  charity, 
not  our  condemnation,  just  as  the  physical  inebriate 
is  deserving  of  our  sympathy  rather  than  our  detesta- 
tion. 

But  in  our  country  the  spread  in  recent  years  of 
this  peculiar  condition  of  mental  and  moral  inebriety 
has  become  a  danger  to  the  general  community  and  the 
nation  at  large,  and  the  cause,  I  fear,  is  a  specifically 
human  one.  I  mean  that  it  lies  in  that  wonderful 
instinct  which  seems  to  impel  the  average  human  to 
exploit  commercially  whatever  comes  within  the  range 
of  his  effort  and  influence.  Not  only  individual  men, 
but  whole  communities  and  nations,  as  history  has 
abundantly  shown,  are  liable  under  given  conditions, 
which  are  often  deliberately  fostered  by  self-seeking 
schemers,  to  become  a  prey  to  certain  obsessions,  and 
it  is  the  creation  and  the  fostering  of  such  conditions 
by  a  few  of  the  more  unscrupulous  commercialists  of 
our  country  that  has  produced  that  particular  obses- 


224  Hon.  C.  J.  Fopicka. 

sion  to  which  I  am  alluding,  and  which  has  today 
seized  an  alarmingly  large  number  of  our  fellow- 
citizens. 

Gentlemen,  I  hold  that  a  man's  opinion  or  belief  is 
his  most  sacred  possession;  but  when  that  opinion  or 
belief  on  any  given  subject  is  so  unreasoning  and 
fanatic  that  it  interferes  with  the  ordinary  functions 
of  his  brain  and  affects  his  moral  conduct  and  the 
correct  performance  of  his  public  and  private  duties, 
it  is  no  longer  an  opinion  or  belief,  but  becomes  an 
obsession,  and  as  such  stands  self-condemned.  When 
judges,  owing  to  their  uncompromising  opinions  on 
the  question  of  prohibiting  the  use  of  stimulants,  be- 
come incapable  of  faithfully  interpreting  the  law  of 
their  country,  whenever  that  question  happens  to  be 
involved,  and  instead  of  administering  that  law  as  it 
is,  deliberately  determine  it  as  they  would  have  it  to 
be;  when  physicians,  owing  to  the  same  opinions, 
shamefully  distort  and  twist  the  truths  of  science  in 
order  to  fit  them  to  those  opinions;  when  teachers  and 
preachers  brazenly  violate  the  precepts  of  their  re- 
ligion, and  practically  disown  the  Divine  Master  whose 
gospel  they  preach,  because  His  actions  ran  counter 
to  those  opinions,  when  He  not  only  made  alcoholic 
beverages,  but  drank  them  Himself;  and  when,  lastly, 
large  majorities  of  the  people's  chosen  representatives 
admittedly  violate  and  defy  the  sacred  constitution 
upon  which  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people  are 
founded,  merely  from  craven  fear  of  the  organized 


Hon.  C.  J.  Fopicka.  225 

assault  upon  their  political  existence  threatened  by 
the  commercialists  who  create  and  exploit  this  terrible 
mania  of  their  fellow-citizens;  it  is  no  longer  a  harm- 
less obsession  that  we  are  confronted  with,  but  a 
species  of  madness,  dangerous  to  the  people  at  large, 
and  subversive  of  the  very  foundations  upon  which 
our  social  fabric  is  erected. 

You  all  know  that  this  is  no  exaggeration.  Indeed, 
there  are  men  in  this  country,  of  wide  experience  and 
high  intelligence,  who  not  only  feared,  but  actually 
believed,  that  our  great  American  government  itself 
might,  in  this  very  case  of  our  distinguished  guest  to- 
night, yield  to  the  artificial  pressure  exerted  upon  it 
by  the  creators  and  leaders  of  this  infatuated  element 
of  our  citizenship,  and  bow  in  obedience  to  their  in- 
solent demand  that  only  those  who  share  their  fanatical 
opinions  and  beliefs  should  be  held  deserving  of  enter- 
ing the  service  of  this  country.  In  other  words,  these 
men  believed  it  possible  that  the  government  of  the 
United  States  might  expose  the  greatest  nation  on 
earth  to  the  everlasting  ridicule  of  the  whole  civilized 
world  by  intimating  to  the  rulers  of  foreign  countries 
that  men  who  are  connected  with  an  industry  in  which 
many  of  these  rulers  themselves  deem  it  proper  and 
creditable  to  engage  are  considered  in  this  enlightened 
land  of  ours  to  be  by  that  very  fact  unworthy  of  re- 
ceiving honorable  distinction  at  the  hands  of  their 
fellow-citizens. 


226  Hon.  C.  J.  Fopicka. 

It  was  for  this  reason  that  I  said  that  the  public 
significance  of  the  appointment  we  are  celebrating 
tonight  far  outweighs  the  private  significance  attaching 
to  the  circumstance  that  that  appointment  happens  to 
be  bestowed  upon  a  friend  and  associate  of  ours.  It 
enables  us,  not  only  as  brewers,  but  as  true  citizens, 
and  as  patriotic  lovers  of  our  country,  proud  and 
jealous  of  the  position  this  country  occupies  as  the 
acknowledged  leader  of  the  nations  of  the  world  in  all 
that  makes  for  the  advancement  and  the  enlightenment 
of  the  human  race,  to  congratulate  ourselves  upon  the 
fact  that  the  illustrious  men  whom  the  nation  has 
placed  at  the  helm  of  its  affairs  have  risen  on  this 
occasion,  as  they  always  have  in  the  past,  and,  so 
God  pleases,  always  will  in  the  future,  superior  to 
the  small  and  unworthy  considerations  which  the 
threats  of  a  fanatic  band  of  unscrupulous  and  danger- 
ous agitators  sought  to  impose  upon  them. 

Mr.  Vopicka,  as  your  friends  and  well  wishers,  who 
love  and  esteem  you,  we  rejoice  in  your  elevation  to 
one  of  the  most  important  and  honorable  posts  in  the 
gift  of  your  country.  As  your  fellow-citizens,  and 
as  men  who  would  rather  see  their  most  cherished 
personal  ambitions  crushed  than  suffer  the  slightest 
blemish  to  rest  upon  the  reputation  and  the  dignity 
of  our  great  and  beloved  nation,  we  doubly  welcome 
the  action  of  its  government  in  bestowing  such 
honor  upon  you,  because  we  recognize  in  it  a  renewed 


Hon.  C.  J.  Fopicka.  227 

guarantee  of  the  fact  that  that  government  stands 
high  above  the  sordid  pettiness  of  selfish  and  ignorant 
factions,  secure  in  the  knowledge  of  its  own  wisdom, 
and  unswerving  in  its  faith  in  the  wisdom  and  intelli- 
gence of  the  vast  majority  of  those  whose  affairs  it  is 
called  upon  to  administer.  » 

And  so  God  speed  you,  dear  friend,  and  bring  you 
happiness  and  achievement  in  the  lands  beyond  the 
sea  to  which  you  are  going,  and  to  the  nation  that 
sends  you  there  that  credit  and  honor  which  it  expects 
to  see  reflected  upon  it  through  you,  its  representative 
and  chosen  envoy. 


Open  Letter  to  Dean 
Walter  T.  Summer 

From  the  Chicago  Inter  Ocean,  April  27,  1913 

The  Very  Rev.  Dean  Walter  T.  Sumner, 

117  North  Peoria  Street,  Chicago. 
Dear  Sir— 

I  have  just  read  your  article  on  the  social 
evil  in  last  Sunday's  edition  of  the  Inter  Ocean,  and 
there  is  so  much  in  it  with  which  I  fully  and  heartily 
agree  that  I  feel  the  more  emboldened  to  offer  a  few 
comments  on  those  portions  of  the  article  in  the  pen- 
ning of  which  I  cannot  help  believing  that  both  your 
sense  of  justice  and  your  sense  of  proportion  must 
have  forsaken  you. 

When  I  preface  these  comments  by  saying  that  I 
am  engaged  in  the  brewing  business,  and  that  I  take 
considerable  pride  in  the  fact,  it  will  scarcely  be  neces- 
sary for  me  to  state  that  the  passages  in  your  article 
regarding  which  I  join  issue  with  you  are  those  that 
bear  upon  the  relationship  of  the  so-called  liquor  traffic 
to  the  evil  you  are  discussing. 

It  has  become  so  common  in  our  day,  perhaps  be- 
cause it  is  so  convenient,  to  blame  the  saloonkeeper, 


Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner.  229 

or  the  liquor  traffic,  for  all  humanity's  ills,  and  for 
all  the  failures  of  those  who  seek  to  cure  those  ills, 
that  to  question  the  justice  of  this  proceeding  is  almost 
as  daring  an  undertaking  as  it  is  to  question  the 
truth  of  a  religious  dogma.  Unfortunately  for  him, 
the  saloonkeeper,  not  being  a  man  of  letters,  and 
so  equipped  with  the  means  of  refuting  the  indiscrimi- 
nate aspersions  with  which  his  detractors  assail  him,  is 
forced  to  bear  those  aspersions  in  silence,  while  those 
among  his  hundreds  of  thousands  of  friends  and 
patrons  who  have  the  ability  to  defend  him,  and  to 
expose  the  injustice,  the  fallacies,  and  in  many  cases 
the  deliberate  falsification  which  only  too  often  char- 
acterize the  attacks  of  his  enemies,  remain  silent  for 
a  different  reason,  namely,  because  they  are  too  cow- 
ardly to  give  voice  to  a  truth  which  they  believe  to 
be  unpopular.  Hence  the  general  public,  hearing 
always  only  one  side  of  the  controversy,  concludes 
that  there  is  no  other  side,  with  the  consequence  that 
the  saloonkeeper  is  indicted,  tried  and  sentenced  with- 
out being  even  heard  in  his  own  defense. 

I  do  not  believe,  from  what  I  know  of  you,  that 
you  would  for  one  moment  willingly  participate  in  such 
an  act  of  injustice,  and  it  is  solely  in  this  belief  that 
I  am  publicly  addressing  you  on  what  I  consider  the 
unwarranted  conclusions  set  forth  in  your  article. 

Because,  by  actual  count,  as  you  say,  236  brothel 
house  keepers  in  Chicago  have  added  the  retailing 


230  Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner. 

of  alcoholic  beverages  to  their  nefarious  calling,  is  it 
just  to  class  upwards  of  seven  thousand  saloonkeepers 
in  the  city  of  Chicago  as  "the  greatest  supporters  of 
the  social  evil,"  and  "as  the  greatest  reapers  of  the 
profits  of  the  social  evil"?  Because  these  236  brothel 
house  keepers  collect  the  charge  they  exact  for  the 
human  bodies  they  supply  by  adding  that  charge  to 
the  price  of  the  alcoholic  (and,  by  the  way,  the  other) 
beverages  they  sell,  is  it  justifiable  to  denounce  the 
liquor  traffic  as  a  whole  as  "the  most  damnable  institu- 
tion at  present  existing  in  our  social  life"? 

There  are  7,200  saloons  in  Chicago,  and  the  figure 
236  is  just  a  fraction  over  3  per  cent  of  those  7,200 
saloons.  Yet  it  is  by  this  3  per  cent  that  you  are 
judging  and  condemning  the  remaining  97  per  cent. 
Is  not  this  a  complete  reversal  of  the  method  of 
Jehovah,  who  was  willing  to  stay  the  doom  of  the 
cities  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  if  only  an  infinitesimal 
fraction  of  a  percentage  of  the  people  of  those  cities 
could  be  proved  to  be  righteous  and  God-fearing? 

The  Bible  tells  us  that  not  ten  such  inhabitants 
could  be  found.  Yet  these  cities  must  have  had  men 
of  all  walks  of  life  among  their  inhabitants,  corre- 
sponding to  our  merchants,  lawyers,  physicians,  teach- 
ers, ministers,  etc.  I  have  often  wondered  whether 
Jehovah  attributed  the  sinfulness  of  all  these  people 
solely  or  mainly  to  the  iniquity  of  the  saloons  of  those 
ancient  communities,  and  destroyed  Sodom  and  Gomor- 


Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner.  231 

rah  merely  to  root  out  that  one  alleged  source  of  all 
evil. 

Since  I  know  from  the  Bible  that  there  were  not  ten 
respectable  men  in  those  cities,  I  am  fairly  convinced 
that  every  saloon  in  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  was  "a 
damnable  institution."  But  I  am  equally  convinced 
that  it  was  not  the  damnable  saloons  that  made  the 
damnable  people  of  those  cities,  but  rather  the  dam- 
nable people  of  those  cities  that  created  their  dam- 
nable saloons.  If  it  had  not  been  so,  would  Jehovah 
have  destroyed  those  people,  instead  of  rather  de- 
stroying the  saloons  or  the  saloonkeepers  that  created 
them? 

Every  family,  every  calling,  every  profession  has 
its  black  sheep.  Take  your  own  profession,  for  in- 
stance (and  I  earnestly  beg  you  to  believe  that  I  refer 
to  that  profession  for  no  reason  personal  to  yourself 
or  your  fellow-clergymen,  but  merely  because  I  can 
conceive  of  no  better  way  to  point  my  argument).  If 
you  investigate  the  prison  statistics  of  the  country 
you  will  find  that  a  comparison  between  the  number 
of  preachers  of  the  gospel  and  the  number  of  saloon- 
keepers confined  in  our  penitentiaries  is  by  no  means 
one  to  cause  the  latter  class  to  feel  ashamed.  More- 
over, no  one  who  reads  the  daily  newspapers  requires 
to  be  informed  that  the  particular  offenses  to  which 
the  black  sheep  of  the  first  named  class  are  most  prone 
are  the  very  offenses  that  constitute  the  main  source 


232  Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner. 

from  which  the  social  evil  originates.  Yet  would  it 
be  fair,  or  just  or  logical  to  conclude  that  for  this 
reason  the  clergy  as  a  whole  is  "the  most  damnable 
institution  at  present  existing  in  our  social  life"?  I 
say  no  honest  reasoner  would  draw  such  a  conclusion. 
Yet,  in  what  respect  is  that  conclusion  any  more  un- 
fair, unjust  and  illogical  than  the  conclusion  you  have 
presented  to  thousands  of  readers  that,  because  236 
houses  of  ill-fame  sell  liquor,  therefore  the  7,200 
saloonkeepers  of  Chicago  are  "the  greatest  reapers  of 
the  profits  of  the  social  evil"? 

I  fully  agree  with  you,  and  I  know  that  many 
saloonkeepers  do  likewise,  when  you  say  that  there 
is  room  for  great  improvement  in  the  conduct  and 
the  character  of  the  saloon  business  in  this  country. 
Whether  such  improvement,  even  if  it  is  effected,  will 
prevent  the  brothel  house  keeper  from  buying  and 
selling  alcoholic  beverags,  is,  however,  very  question- 
able. But  the  main  fallacy  of  those  who  are  advocating 
this  improvement  is  the  same  fallacy  which,  I  submit, 
underlies  your  sweeping  condemnation  of  a  trade  that 
should  no  more  be  judged  solely  by  its  shady  side 
than  should  any  other  trade  or  profession. 

That  fallacy  consists  in  the  assumption  that  it  is 
the  character  of  the  saloon  that  makes  the  character 
of  the  community  in  which  it  exists.  The  reverse  is 
the  truth.  It  is  the  man  that  makes  the  character  of 
the  saloon  he  frequents,  not  the  saloon  that  makes  the 


Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner.  233 

character  of  the  man  who  frequents  it.  The  low 
saloon  does  not  create  the  social  evil,  but  the  social 
evil  does  undoubtedly  create  the  low  saloon.  If  you 
get  rid  of  the  social  evil,  you  will  get  rid  of  the  low 
saloon.  But  if  you  succeeded  in  suppressing  every 
low  saloon  in  Chicago,  the  social  evil  would  not  be 
minimized  thereby  a  particle. 

I  venture  to  say  here,  incidentally,  and  I  know  that 
the  experience  of  every  practical  man  who  has  studied 
this  question  will  bear  out  my  statement,  that  the 
percentage  of  cases  where  a  girl  has  lost  her  virtue 
and  started  on  the  downward  path  in  a  saloon  is, 
comparatively  speaking,  extremely  small. 

It  is  after  she  has  fallen  that  she  gravitates  toward 
,  the  class  of  saloon  that  caters  to  her  kind,  both  male 
and  female,  and  she  helps  to  create  and  maintain  that 
class  of  saloon,  just  as  a  tough  neighborhood  will 
create  and  maintain  a  tough  saloon,  and  a  criminal 
neighborhood  a  criminal  saloon.  Considering  the  two 
and  a  quarter  million  population  of  the  city  of  Chicago 
and  the  well-known  percentage  of  mankind  the  world 
over  who  are  of  tough,  vicious  or  criminal  proclivities, 
it  would  be  surprising,  in  fact,  if  the  number  of 
places  that  have  been  called  into  existence  by  that 
percentage  in  Chicago  should  not  prove  in  reality 
to  be  larger  than  you  have  estimated. 

Every  student  of  economics  knows  that  it  is  the 
demand  that  creates  the  supply,  not  the  supply  that 


234  Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner. 

creates  the  demand;  and,  more  than  that,  it  is  upon 
the  character  of  the  demand  that  the  character  of  the 
supply  is  conditioned,  and  not  vice  versa.  Yet  all  the 
arguments  and  all  the  actions  of  those  who,  like  your- 
self, are  endeavoring  to  better  the  moral  conditions 
under  which  we  live  are  persistently  based  upon  the 
very  opposite  assumption,  with  the  result  that,  instead 
of  bettering  those  conditions,  they  render  them  worse. 

That  the  American  saloon  generally  is  what  it  is 
today  is  not  due  to  the  saloonkeeper,  but  to  the  public, 
which  demands  the  kind  of  saloon  he  conducts,  and  no 
other.  But,  instead  of  aiming  to  improve  the  taste  of 
the  public,  those  who  are  indiscriminately  decrying 
the  saloon  are  still  further  debasing  that  taste.  In 
other  words,  instead  of  seeking  to  elevate  the  character 
of  the  demand  that  creates  the  supply,  they  are  fool- 
ishly degrading  the  channels  through  which  that  supply 
flows. 

Do  you  think,  for  instance,  that  by  publicly  classing 
97  per  cent  of  the  saloonkeepers  of  Chicago  with  the 
percentage  of  brothel  house  keepers  who  have  obtained 
licenses  to  retail  liquor,  you  are  advancing  the  much- 
desired  change  in  the  character  of  the  Chicago  saloon? 
Such  statements,  when  they  are  made  by  the  profes- 
sional prohibition  agitator,  may  be  ignored,  but  when 
they  emanate  from  men  of  your  character  and  stand- 
ing they  are  repeated  by  thousands  of  thoughtless 
and  ignorant  people  until  by  mere  repetition  they 


Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner.  235 

assume  the  nature  of  an  axiom,  and,  instead  of 
inducing  a  higher  type  of  man  to  take  the  place  of 
the  low  type  saloonkeeper,  they  drive  the  existing 
high-class  saloonkeeper  in  disgust  to  give  place  to 
the  man  who  does  not  care  one  iota  how  you  or 
others  may  class  him. 

Meanwhile  the  effect  of  this  policy  of  indiscriminate 
vilification  produces,  if  possible,  a  worse  effect  upon 
a  large  portion  of  the  saloonkeepers'  customers  than 
it  does  upon  the  saloonkeeper  himself.  It  makes 
hypocrites  of  those  customers.  And  here  you  have 
the  fountain  and  origin  of  that  which  you  rightly 
criticize  in  the  American  saloon  of  today,  namely, 
the  almost  incredible  hypocrisy  that  has  been  bred, 
by  just  such  wholesale  denunciations  as  yours,  in  a 
large  number  of  American  men  who  frequent,  and 
always  will  frequent,  the  saloon,  but  who  demand  the 
facilities  of  doing  so  without  being  seen  by  those 
whose  opinions  of  the  saloon  they  publicly  pretend 
to  concur  in,  but  in  secret  laugh  at. 

These  men  are  recruited  from  the  same  large  class 
of  people  who,  in  public,  follow  the  modern  fashion 
of  railing  against  drink  and  the  drink-seller,  and  who, 
in  private,  have  their  beer,  or  whisky,  or  other  similar 
beverages  smuggled  into  their  houses  concealed  in  flour 
barrels,  vegetable  baskets,  or  other  innocent-looking 
receptacles. 


236  Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner. 

It   is   largely  men  of  your   profession — as    a   class 

without  doubt  the  best  intentioned  men  in  the  world 

—who  are  unwittingly  creating  these  hypocrites,  and 

thus,  pathetically  enough,  are  producing  the  very  thing 

they  are  so  ardently  working  to  destroy. 

You  may  possibly  think  that  I  make  this  statement 
merely  by  way  of  turning  the  tables,  or  in  order  to 
create  sensational  effect.  But  I  solemnly  assure  you 
that  I  have  no  such  effect  in  view.  On  the  contrary, 
I  ask  you  to  ponder  the  statement  earnestly,  for  I 
know  the  truth  of  what  I  am  saying,  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  other  men,  though  they  may  profess 
to  you  to  be  inexpressibly  shocked  at  this  utterance  of 
mine,  realize  that  same  truth,  but  have  not  the  courage 
or  the  manhood  to  say  it. 

Hypocrisy,  unfortunately,  is  the  besetting  sin  of  an 
appalling  number  of  our  fellow-citizens,  and  it  is  far 
worse  and  its  insidious  effect  upon  our  social  life  is 
infinitely  more  far-reaching  than  all  the  evils  of  the 
disreputable  saloon,  which  it  is  largely  instrumental 
in  creating. 

The  accusation,  however  true  it  may  be,  that  among 
the  thousands  of  customers  who  are  supplied,  or  com- 
mercially assisted,  by  the  brewing  concerns  of  this 
city  there  are  some  disreputable  ones  who  should  not 
be  in  the  business  at  all,  does  not  alter  the  force,  or 
affect  the  bearing  of  this  broader  fact — namely,  that 
that  which  is  unclean  in  the  business  is  primarily  the 


Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner.  287 

product  not  of  him  who  manufactures  and  supplies 
drink  but  of  him  who  purchases  and  consumes  it. 

Every  brewer  and  every  saloonkeeper  realizes  the 
delicate  and  difficult  position  in  which  this  fact  places 
him  as  a  business  man.  I  have  no  doubt,  for  instance, 
that  if  I  could  personally  investigate  all  the  places 
supplied  by  the  concerns  I  am  connected  with  I  should 
find  some  highly  undesirable  ones.  Some  brewers  are 
perhaps  less  concerned  than  others  about  the  character 
of  the  trade  they  supply.  But  the  brewers  as  a  whole 
do  inquire,  and  inquire  diligently,  into  the  moral  sur- 
roundings of  those  with  whom  they  deal  commercially, 
and  I  believe  they  are  the  only  class  of  commercial 
men  that  do  so.  For  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  the 
banker  refuses  to  lend  money  on  security  because 
the  borrower  intends  to  use  that  money  for  nefarious 
purposes,  or  that  the  dry  goods  merchant,  the  haber- 
dasher, the  butcher,  the  grocer,  the  real  estate  man,  or 
any  others  refuse  to  serve  the  panderer  or  the  prosti- 
tute, because  by  so  doing  they  are  contributing  to  their 
comfort,  their  maintenance,  or,  worse  still,  to  the 
stock-in-trade  of  their  business. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  say  that  I  wish  with  all  my 
heart  I  could  share  your  sanguine  expectation  that 
the  evil  of  intemperance  will  be  destroyed  by  our  good 
women,  if  and  when  they  obtain  the  ballot  in  this 
country.  But  you  imply,  in  the  same  connection,  that 
you  expect  this  result  to  come,  not  from  the  morally 


238  Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner. 

uplifting  influence  of  individual  women  upon  our 
race,  to  which  we  owe  the  best  part  of  our  moral 
progress  in  the  past,  but  from  the  repressive  laws 
which  you  say  women  will  succeed  in  enacting,  and 
this  leads  me  to  conclude  that  you  do  not  rate  as  high 
as  I  do  the  real  influence  which  woman  has  in  the 
past  exercised,  and  I  hope  will  in  the  future  still 
exercise,  in  this  very  direction. 

Here,  too,  you  appear  to  argue  from  the  assumption 
that  it  is  the  surrounding  circumstances  that  create 
the  weakness  of  man,  whereas  it  is  so  obviously  the 
weakness  of  man  that  creates  the  surrounding  cir- 
cumstances which  cater  and  minister  to  that  weakness. 
Or  has  your  experience  really  led  you  to  the  fallacious 
conclusion  of  so  many  of  your  fellow-teachers  of  the 
present  day  that  repressive  legislation  can  relieve  them 
of  any  of  the  burdens  of  their  task  as  educators  and 
uplifters  of  their  kind  and  render  that  task  .an  easier 
one? 

The  main  object  of  repressive  laws,  as  I  understand 
them,  is  to  remove  temptation  from  the  weak.  The 
main  object  of  religion,  and  therefore  of  education,  is, 
on  the  contrary,  to  strengthen  the  weak  so  that  they 
may  be  the  better  able  to  withstand  temptation.  The 
first  object,  if  it  were  attainable — which  it  notoriously 
is  not — would,  of  course,  take  much  toil  and  trouble 
off  your  shoulders  and  practically  render  your  calling 
a  sinecure.  But  would  it  accomplish  what  the  second 


Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner.  239 

object  aims  to  accomplish,  namely,  to  raise  mankind 
itself  to  that  higher  spiritual  level  toward  which  our 
religion  directs  us  to  strive?  Is  the  thief  who  goes 
to  prison  a  thief  no  longer?  Or,  to  put  it  more 
broadly,  can  the  removal  of  temptation,  even  if  it  were 
possible,  alter  the  weak  and  unstable  character  of 
those  who  are  liable  to  succumb  to  it  any  more  than 
the  prison  bars  can  transform  the  criminals  we  place 
behind  them  into  honest  and  upright  members  of  human 
society?  I  fervently  trust  that  woman,  when  she 
obtains  the  vote,  will  not  realize  your  expectations  in 
the  manner  you  suggest,  but  that,  instead  of  appealing 
to  Caesar  to  carry  out  the  task  she  has  been  specially 
ordained  and  fitted  to  accomplish,  she  will  continue 
to  pursue  the  slower  but  surer  method  of  performing 
that  task  herself. 

I  have  never  heard  the  truth  regarding  human  im- 
perfection and  the  ludicrous  attempts  to  cure  it  by  law 
more  pithily  expressed  than  by  an  old  German  saloon- 
keeper, who,  in  his  humble  way,  did  more  than  any 
man  I  have  ever  known  to  guide  the  young  and  foolish 
safely  past  the  rocks  and  eddies  which  we  all  of  us 
have  to  encounter  in  our  passage  along  the  stream  of 
life.  He  was  referring  to  the  vice  of  intemperance, 
but  his  words  are  applicable,  mutatis  mutandis,  to  all 
human  vice  and  weakness,  and  this  is  how  they  ran: 

"It  ain't  'cause  folks  drink  too  much  that  they're 
no  good.  It's  'cause  they're  no  good  that  they  drink 


240  Open  Letter  to  Dean  Sumner. 

too  much,  and  other  folks  is  wasting  time  trying  to 
cure  their  trouble  at  the  wrong  end." 

It  is  not  the  language  of  Milton  or  Wordsworth. 
But  it  is  the  language  of  pure,  unadulterated  common 
sense,  and  there  is  nothing  our  country  is  so  sadly 
in  need  of  at  the  present  time  as  a  little  of  that 
self-same  simple  common  sense. 

Would  that  men  of  your  acknowledged  character, 
broad  view  and  high  purpose  might  realize  this  fact 
and  condescend  occasionally  to  listen  to  and  learn  from 
men  of  the  character  and  the  practical  experience  of 
my  humble  friend,  the  old  German  saloonkeeper. 

Very  truly  yours, 

PERCY  ANDREAE. 


Political  and  Personal  Liberty 


Address  Delivered  at  the  Annual  Banquet  of  the 
American  Association  of  Foreign  -  Language 
Newspapers,  New  York,  February  7,  1914. 


Mr.  President,,  Members  of  the  American  Association 

of  Foreign  Language  Newspapers,  and  Ladies  and 

Gentlemen: 

I  once  heard  "Personal  Liberty"  rather  flippantly 
described  as  "the  privilege  which  every  free-born  citizen 
enjoys  of  preventing  his  neighbor  from  doing  what  he 
likes." 

Sarcastic  as  it  may  sound,  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that 
this  definition  of  personal  liberty,  as  practiced  to-day 
by  quite  a  goodly  number  of  our  fellow-citizens,  is 
entirely  beside  the  truth.  The  fact  is  that  the  best  of  us 
are  more  prompt  to  recognize  our  own  individual  rights 
than  we  are  to  recognize  the  individual  rights  of  our 
neighbor,  and  here  perhaps  lies  the  root  of  all  that  is 
controversial  about  the  question  of  personal  liberty 
to-day. 

For,  that  the  question  of  what  constitutes  personal 
liberty  is  a  subject  of  controversy,  and  somewhat  bitter 


242  Political  and  Personal  Liberty. 

controversy,  in  this  enlightened  age  of  ours,  is  a  fact 
admitting  of  no  doubt.  I  venture  to  go  further  and 
assert  that  this  great  principle,  for  which  men  have 
fought  and  died  in  all  ages,  has  perhaps  never  been  in 
greater  jeopardy,  has  never  been  subject  to  more 
insidious  attack,  than  it  is  at  the  present  day,  when 
the  word  "freedom"  is  on  every  man's  lips,  and  the 
boast  that  man  is  his  own  sovereign  forms  the  burden 
of  every  patriotic  song. 

Of  course,  the  day  of  the  despotic  ruler,  who  sacri- 
ficed the  liberties  of  the  people  on  the  altar  of  his  own 
ambition,  is  gone.  We  choose  our  own  rulers,  and  even 
in  many  monarchical  countries  the  voice  of  the  people 
counts  in  government  to-day  as  it  never  counted  in 
history  before.  This  means  that  we  have  gained  our 
political  liberty,  and  it  is,  of  course,  a  mighty  achieve- 
ment to  have  wrested  this  great  possession  from  the 
powerful  few  who,  in  past  ages,  withheld  it  from  us. 
for  the  purpose  of  their  own  gain  and  aggrandizement. 
But,  like  all  human  achievements,  it  has  brought  with 
it  its  dangers  as  well  as  its  blessings. 

Personal  liberty,  as  we  well  know,  is  something  quite 
distinct  from  political  liberty,  and  the  danger  which 
we  can  never  be  careful  enough  to  guard  against  is  that 
the  acquisition  of  the  one  may  involve  us  in  the  loss 
or  the  curtailment  of  the  other.  When  every  man  be- 
comes potentially  a  law-maker  the  temptation  of  the 
sovereign  individual,  both  individually  and  collectively, 


Political  and  Personal  Liberty.  243 

to  regard  himself  as  his  brother's  keeper,  called  upon 
to  direct  and  regulate  his  brother's  conduct  and  habits 
and  morals,  is  liable  to  create  a  system  of  tyranny 
which  may  prove  to  be  even  worse  in  its  effects  upon 
the  community  at  large  than  the  yoke  of  the  ancient 
form  of  despotic  government  which  we  have  succeeded 
in  throwing  off. 

Nowhere,  it  seems  to  me,  does  this  truth  apply  with 
greater  force  than  it  does  in  this  country,  where  the 
customs,  the  habits,  the  ideals  and  the  social  needs  of 
those  who  have  made  it  their  adopted  home  and  refuge 
vary  as  much  as  the  creeds  and  nationalities  vary  from 
which  their  ranks  have  been  recruited.  If  one  creed 
or  nationality,  even  though  it  exceed  all  others  in  num- 
bers, should  seek,  by  misuse  of  its  political  liberty,  to 
impose  its  particular  customs,  opinions  and  beliefs  upon 
the  rest  of  the  citizenship,  the  conflict  between  political 
liberty  and  personal  liberty  must  at  once  become  acute, 
to  the  detriment,  not  only  of  the  individuals  whose 
liberties  are  involved,  but  of  the  community  as  a  whole. 
For  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  the  issue  of  such  a 
conflict  can  be  determined.  It  must  last  until  the 
rights  of  the  individual  .are  vindicated,  -because  our 
individual  rights  are  our  heritage  from  Nature,  and 
no  human  power  can  permanently  suppress  them. 
They  consist,  not  in  the  political  rights  which  the  many 
have  obtained  by  conquest  from  the  few,  but  in  the 
natural  rights  which  each  of  us  must  seek  from  the 


244  Political  and  Personal  Liberty. 

other,  each  of  us  must  concede  to  the  other,  and  each  of 
us  must  defend  from  the  other  and  for  the  other,  as 
long  as  the  world  lasts ;  the  God-given  rights  of  individ- 
ual man  as  distinguished  from  the  man-given  rights  of 
the  community  of  which  he  forms  a  constituent  part. 

There  is  no  need  to  define  what  these  rights  are.  The 
history  of  government  has  long  ago  defined  them  for 
all  of  us,  and  their  limits  have  been  set,  and  will  always 
be  set,  by  actual  experience. 

But  here  is  the  crux  of  this  whole  great  question,  as 
it  confronts  us  to-day.  It  is  just  history,  and  the 
experience  of  those  who  lived  before  us,  which  are 
strangely  lost  sight  of  in  the  tendencies  of  many  of 
our  present-day  reformers.  They  suffer  from  a  perfect 
rage,  not  only  to  accelerate  the  slow  and  steady  proc- 
esses of  Nature,  but  to  correct  and  even  arrest  them; 
and,  since  the  making  of  laws  is  now  in  our  owrn  hands, 
they  demand  that  we  shall  devote  our  law-making 
power,  not  only  to  the  correction  of  the  defects  of  our 
weaker  fellow-men,  but  to  the  correction  of  that  which 
they  believe  to  be  the  defects  of  Nature  herself,  who 
created  those  weaker  fellow-men. 

Education  has  become  to  them  a  mere  secondary 
auxiliary  in  shaping  our  lightning  course  towards  per- 
fection. Mankind,  if  we  are  to  believe  them,  can  be 
made  honest,  and  righteous,  and  sober,  and  moral,  and 
what  not,  by  a  mere  stroke  of  the  legislative  pen.  The 
stern  truth  is  forgotten,  which  history  has  so  often  and 


Political  and  Personal  Liberty.  245 

so  painfully  impressed  upon  humanity,  that  law  can 
successfully  concern  itself  only  with  the  actions  of  man 
towards  man,  but  can  never  determine  or  control  the 
actions  of  individual  man  in  such  matters  as  concern 
himself  alone. 

Under  the  circumstances,  then,  it  is  scarcely  surpris- 
ing that  all  the  activities  of  that  particular  class  of 
reformers  which  I  am  describing  should  proceed  from 
a  basis  which  is  the  very  opposite  from  that  upon  which 
our  civilization  and  general  social  structure  have  been 
erected.  For,  whereas  law,  as  we  generally  understand 
it,  has  always  sprung  from  and  been  established  by 
custom,  they  are  to-day  trying  to  reverse  the  process 
and  establish  custom  by  law.  Whereas,  we  have  hith- 
erto largely  left  it  to  Nature  to  deal  with  the  small 
percentage  of  defectives  she  produces,  and  have  made 
our  customs  and  usages  conform  to  the  character  of  the 
huge  percentage  of  normal  beings,  they  are  to-day 
adopting  the  opposite  course  and  are  not  only  attempt- 
ing to  take  the  defectives  out  of  Nature's  experienced 
hands,  but  are  actually  demanding  of  normal  man  that 
he  shall  shape  his  customs  and  his  habits  to  suit  the 
needs  and  the  weaknesses  of  the  comparatively  few 
defectives  among  us. 

In  saying  this,  I  am  not  casting  any  doubt  upon  the 
motives  of  these  good  people.  They  are  excellent,  of 
course.  But  the  question  is  not  whether  their  motives 
are  excellent,  but  whether,  by  acting  upon  them,  they 


246  Political  and  Personal  Liberty. 

will  attain  the  excellent  object  they  are  seeking  to 
obtain. 

The  fact  is  that  we  cannot,  by  law,  subordinate  the 
faculties  of  the  strong  .to  the  needs  of  the  weak  with- 
out destroying  the  very  essence  of  that  which  has  made 
the  majority  of  men  to-day  the  strong,  reliant  and 
competent  beings  they  are — their  personal  liberty.  It 
is  true  that  wise  laws  have  done  much  to  direct  the 
activities  of  men  into  worthy  channels,  even  more  per- 
haps than  unwise  laws  have  undone.  But  our  would-be 
uplifters  forget  that  individual  man  himself  has  risen, 
and  is  still  rising,  above  the  inherent  weakness  of  all 
animal  nature,  not  by  compulsion  of  law,  or  by  the 
coercion  of  his  superiors,  but  by  reason  of  the  exercise 
if  his  God-given  individual  free  will,  his  power  of  self- 
restraint,  and  by  those  higher  faculties  which  religion 
and  culture  have  developed  in  him. 

If  we  once  deprive  men  of  the  right  and  the  oppor- 
tunity to  exercise  these  faculties,  the  result  must  be, 
if  Nature's  work  is  any  criterion,  not  that  the  weak 
will  be  raised  to  the  level  of  the  strong,  but  that  the 
strong  will  be  lowered  to  the  level  of  the  weak.  If  we 
sacrifice  the  independence  of  the  many  in  order  to 
protect  the  frailty  of  the  few,  we  shall  not  only  destroy 
the  source  from  which  the  many  derive  their  strength, 
but  shall  still  further  accentuate  the  dependence  of 
the  few,  to  whom  a  share  of  that  strength  has  been 
denied.  Charity  affords  the  best  proof  of  the  truth  of 


Political  and  Personal  Liberty.  247 

this.  For  who  does  not  know  that  Charity,  which  aims 
to  relieve  poverty,  is  the  most  fruitful  producer  of 
paupers  ? 

This,  then,  is  the  real  and  most  stupendous  danger 
that  confronts  us  wherever  we  are  confronted  with  the 
curtailment  of  our  personal  liberty,  not,  as  those  who 
affect  to  sneer  at  that  liberty  pretend,  the  mere  sacrifice 
of  our  individual  pleasures,  our  individual  indulgences, 
or  the  satisfaction  of  our  individual  social  needs.  These 
are  minor  incidents  of  this  great  question,  dear  to  our 
hearts,  of  course,  but  mere  trifles  compared  with  the 
greater  considerations  involved. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  new  in  all  this,  and  certainly 
nothing  new  to  you,  many  of  whom  are  far  abler 
exponents  and  far  doughtier  champions  of  the  prin- 
ciples I  have  been  asked  to  discuss  here  than  I  can 
ever  hope  to  be.  No  man,  indeed,  who  has  studied 
the  history  of  government,  and  in  particular  the  limita- 
tions of  the  law-making  power,  as  evidenced  by  its 
many  disastrous  failures  in  all  ages  and  under  every 
variety  of  conditions,  needs  to  be  told  that  the  safe- 
guarding of  that  which  we  call  the  personal  liberty  of 
man  is  the  primary  and  most  vital  essential  to  all 
human  progress,  and  that  no  law  affecting  that  liberty 
in  the  slightest  particular,  however  charitable,  however 
estimable  the  motives  may  appear  that  prompt  it,  can 
be  enacted  without  danger  to  the  whole  system  upon 
which  our  civilization  is  founded. 


248  Political  and  Personal  Liberty. 

Unhappily,  the  men  who  have  acquired  this  knowl- 
edge, and  who  possess  this  experience,  are  only  too 
often  not  the  men  who  assemble  in  our  legislative  halls, 
with  the  mandate  of  the  people  to  make  their  laws  for 
them.  And  here  we  have  an  anomalous  condition  pre- 
sented to  us  which  has  often  puzzled  me,  and  which  I 
offer  for  your  earnest  thought  and  consideration. 

We  demand  of  every  profession  upon  which,  directly 
or  indirectly,  the  public  welfare  is  dependent,  that  its 
members,  before  being  permitted  to  enter  it,  shall 
receive  previous  instruction  and  training  at  the  hands 
of  those  whose  knowledge  and  experience  of  all  its  intri- 
cacies have  been  acquired  by  diligent  study  and  wide 
practice.  I  say  we  demand  this  of  every  profession, 
excepting  one — that  of  the  law-maker.  The  physician, 
the  jurist,  the  teacher  and  the  preacher  are  required  to 
give  evidence  of  their  fitness  to  follow  their  respective 
professions  before  they  are  licensed  to  practice  them. 
Yet  the  most  important  profession  of  all,  that  of  the 
law-maker,  is  open  unconditionally  to  every  adult 
citizen,  and  its  members  are  selected  by  the  people 
haphazard,  without  inquiry  into  their  fitness,  and  with- 
out consideration  of  their  knowledge  and  experience 
of  the  intricate  problems  of  law  and  government  with 
which  the  world  has  grappled  since  history  began. 

Is  it  entirely  to  be  wondered  at  that  legislation, 
under  these  circumstances,  frequently  runs  riot,  and 
that  it  is  guided  by  impulse  and  sentiment,  and  by 


Political  and  Personal  Liberty.  249 

the  often  artificially  created  clamor  of  the  untutored 
multitude,  rather  than  by  logic  and  reason  and  the  cau- 
tion that  comes  with  accumulated  knowledge  and  train- 
ing? Our  schools  and  universities  teach  the  evolution  of 
law,  the  interpretation  of  law,  and  the  practice  of  law. 
But  the  science  which  concerns  itself  with  the  effect  and 
the  bearings  of  law,  the  science  which  defines  the  true 
scope  of  legislation,  and  inculcates  the  lessons  to  be 
learned  from  its  successes  and  failures,  the  science,  in 
short,  which  deals  with  the  natural  restrictions  and  lim- 
itations of  the  law-making  power,  has,  I  believe,  no 
chair  in  any  university  in  the  world. 

Is  this  condition  subject  to  remedy?  Or  would  any 
change  in  it  be  incompatible  with  the  preservation  of 
our  political  liberty?  It  would  be  a  bold  man  who  pre- 
sumed to  answer  the  question  off-hand.  But  whether 
it  be  subject  to  remedy  or  not,  the  condition  itself,  I 
submit,  is  the  primary  cause  of  the  multitude  of  freak 
laws  which  clog  our  statute  books,  the  dead-letter  laws 
which  breed  among  us  so  much  pestilent  contempt  of 
duly  constituted  authority,  those  unburied  corpses,  in 
other  words,  that  bestrew  the  battlefield  on  which 
political  liberty  and  personal  liberty  are  to-day  so 
fiercely  contending  for  their  respective  rights. 

The  victory  at  this  day  is  still  with  personal  liberty. 
But  for  how  long?  The  forces  of  tyranny  and  op- 
pression are  ever  with  us,  and  they  surround  that  battle- 
field to-day  in  their  full  array,  awaiting  the  oppor- 


250  Political  and  Personal  Liberty. 

tunity  to  fall  upon  both  champions  and  bind  them  hand 
and  foot  with  the  chains  forged  by  fanaticism  and 
intolerance. 

And  if  these  forces  should  ever  accomplish  their 
purpose,  what  then?  Read  the  printed  publications 
and  the  open  declarations  of  these  insidious  foes  of  the 
liberties  which  the  millions  of  your  best  and  sturdiest 
fellow-citizens  came  to  this  great  republic  to  preserve 
and  enjoy,  and  they  will  tell  you  "what  then."  They 
will  tell  you,  as  nothing  else  can  tell  you,  that  if  there 
is  one  prayer  more  than  any  other  which  every  true 
citizen  of  this  great  country  should  offer  up  morn  and 
night  to  the  Giver  of  all  things,  it  is  the  prayer  that 
our  free  America  may  be  preserved  from  the  curse  of 
racial  and  social  and  religious  prejudices  and  intoler- 
ances, for  they  are  the  harbingers  of  disaster  to  all 
that  we  cherish  under  the  name  of  freedom  and  liberty. 


Comments  on  Mr.  Andreae's 
Banquet  Address 

(From  the  American  Leader,  June  11,  1914.) 

What  the  Press,  Educators,  Senators  and  Congress- 
men Think  of  the  Remarkable  Address  Delivered 
by  Mr.  Percy  Andreae  of  Chicago  at  the  Fifth 
Annual  Banquet  of  the  American  Association  of 
Foreign-Language  Newspapers,  Held  in  New 
York,  February  7,  1914. 

The  attention  aroused  throughout  the  country  by 
the  address  on  "Personal  Liberty"  delivered  by  Mr. 
Percy  Andreae  at  the  annual  banquet  of  the  American 
Association  of  Foreign  Language  Newspapers  has 
been  of  so  unusual  a  kind  that  an  epitome  of  the  com- 
ments made  thereon,  not  only  by  the  press,  but  by 
many  leading  educators,  senators  and  congressmen 
of  the  country  will  prove  of  interest  to  all  who  read 
this  address  in  The  American  Leader  of  February 
12,  1914. 

Among  the  press  comments  the  following  extracts 
are  gleaned  from  numerous  editorials  in  which  Mr. 
Andreae's  suggestions  were  discussed: 

The  Springfield  Republican,  in  an  extensive  analysis 
of  the  address,  says: 


252  Mr.  Andreae  s  Banquet  Address. 

"Many  serious  thinkers  nowadays  are  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  danger  of  excessive  law-making.  Mr. 
Andreae  puts  the  case  well  when  he  says:  'Whereas 
law,  as  we  generally  understand  it,  has  always  sprung 
from  and  been  established  by  custom,  they  are  to-day 
trying  to  reverse  the  process  and  establish  custom  by 
law.' ' 

The  Indianapolis  News  in  a  two-column  article  on 
the  address  says: 

"The  question  is  one  of  maintaining  not  simply  our 
civil  liberty,  but  our  religious  liberty  as  well.  The 
more  closely  one  studies  history,  the  more  clearly  is 
one  convinced  of  the  enormous  harm  done  both  the 
minds  and  souls  of  men  through  efforts  to  limit  their 
rightful  liberty  even  in  the  interest  of  what  was  sup- 
posed to  be  morality  and  religion." 

The  Buffalo  News,  speaking  editorially,  refers  to 
the  "novel  view  set  forth  by  Mr.  Andreae  that  the 
political  liberty  we  enjoy  is  proving  a  danger  to  our 
individual  liberty,"  and  adds,  "There  is  a  good  deal 
in  another  idea  of  the  same  speaker  that  it  is  remark- 
able that  the  science  of  law-making  has  no  chair  in  any 
university  in  the  yorld." 

Th(e  Troy  (N.  Y.)  Times  ends  a  full  column  edi- 
torial on  the  address  with  the  words: 

"Mr.  Andreae  deals  in  forceful  fashion  with  a  topic 
of  peculiar  interest,  and  it  will  not  be  strange  if  his 
suggestions  arouse  earnest  thought  and  evoke  much 
discussion." 


Mr.  Andreaes  Banquet  Address.  253 

The  Rochester  (N.  Y.)  Times  says,  referring  to  Mr. 
Andreae's  "startling  suggestions,"  that  "the  laws  im- 
posed by  an  active  and  zealous  minority  may  be  as 
oppressive  and  annoying  and  as  destructive  of  the 
rights  of  individuals  as  laws  imposed  by  a  czar." 

The  Fall  River  (Mass.)  Herald  says: 

"Mr.  Andreae  has  put  his  finger  upon  a  weak  spot 
in  our  national  political  organization,  and  no  man  in 
touch  with  our  present-day  conditions  can  question  the 
truth  of  his  observations." 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  effect  produced  by  the 
address  is  shown  in  the  large  number  of  communica- 
tions on  the  subject  received  from  legislators  of  all 
parties  and  the  heads  of  educational  establishments 
throughout  the  country. 

For  instance,  President  L.  J.  Corbly,  of  Marshall 
College,  Huntington,  W.  Va.,  refers  to  the  address  as 
replete  with  "ideas  bristling  with  suggestions  that 
reveal  a  man  and  a  mind  in  vital  touch  with  social  and 
educational  tendencies."  "Every  legislator  in  the  land." 
he  continues,  "ought  to  read  it,  read  it  again,  and  then 
read  it  as  one  who  will  understand. 

"It  reflects  two  things  I  have  emphasized  in  private 
and  public  addresses  for  two  years,  namely,  the  differ- 
ence between  political  and  personal  freedom  together 
with  the  tremendous  importance  of  guaranteeing  the 
latter  if  we  ever  hope  to  achieve,  as  we  should,  the 
former,  and  the  puerility  of  legislating  morals  into 


254  Mr.  Andreae3  s  Banquet  Address. 

the  upper  stratum  of  the  social  fabric  without  making 
the  lower  and  substrata  fundamental  to  all  morality 
that  is  worth  the  having — an  astounding  example  of 
the  'cart  before  the  horse.' 

"Mr.  Andreae's  chair  in  educational  institutions  will 
be  realized  throughout  the  world  purely  as  the  result 
of  that  opportune  and  wise  suggestion  and  discovery. 
I  shall  commend  the  address  to  every  young  man  in 
our  school." 

Clarence  D.  Ashley,  dean  of  the  New  York  Univer- 
sity School  of  Law,  goes  a  step  further  than  President 
Corbly,  and  says: 

"My  last  annual  report,  which  seems  to  have  at- 
tracted some  public  attention,  referred  to  courses  of 
this  character,  and  their  proposed  scope  would  include 
just  such  instruction  as  Mr.  Andreae  advocates.  This 
university  stands  ready  to  give  a  one  or  two  years' 
course  along  these  and  kindred  lines,  if  any  one  or 
more  patriotic  and  well-to-do  citizens  will  supply  the 
funds." 

Isaac  H.  Lionberger,  of  St.  Louis,  former  member 
of  the  faculty  of  the  Law  School  of  Washington  Uni- 
versity, agrees  with  Mr.  Andreae  because  "in  the  brief 
day  of  the  social  reformers  all  sorts  of  injurious  experi- 
ments are  tried." 

"I  know  of  nothing,"  he  says,  "so  efficacious  in  con- 
vincing people  of  the  folly  of  their  opinions  as  to  let 
them  have  their  way.  Misfortune  is  irritable.  It  needs 


Mr.  Andreae' s  Banquet  Address.  255 

to  do  something  for  its  own  relief.  It  exhausts  itself 
in  the  doing  of  foolishness.  It  is  utterly  incredible 
that  one  hundred  thousand  pages  of  new  positive  law 
should  each  year  be  enacted  and  enforced.  The  read- 
justments which  follow  are  furtive  and  unseen,  yet 
nevertheless  efficacious  in  the  long  run. 

"While  these  are  my  convictions,  I  nevertheless 
think  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Andreae  a  most  admirable 
one.  It  ought  to  be  of  the  greatest  service  to  the 
young  men  of  the  United  States  to  be  familiar  with 
the  distressing  history  of  such  experiments  as  are, 
from  day  to  day,  attempted.  They  will  learn  to  fear 
less  from  such  follies  and  to  trust  less  in  them." 

Representative  William  Gordon,  of  the  20th  Con- 
gressional District  of  Ohio,  touches  the  same  note  in 
his  comment  when  he  says : 

"Members  of  our  legislative  bodies  are  too  prone  to 
yield  their  convictions  on  public  questions  to  what  they 
assume  to  be  public  sentiment,  which  is,  in  fact,  only 
the  persistent,  oft-repeated  clamor  of  a  comparatively 
few  noisy  individuals. 

"Mr.  Andreae  is  a  very  able  man,  and  in  my  opinion 
he  has  done  much  to  direct  the  people  of  this  country 
into  the  right  line  of  thinking  for  themselves." 

Senator  John  Sharpe  Williams  says: 

"I  think  ihere  is  a  great  deal  in  what  Mr.  Andreae 
says.  The  political  power  of  the  majority  sometimes 
curtails  the  individual's  liberty;  in  fact,  it  has  a  ten- 


256  Mr.  Andreae's  Banquet  Address. 

dency  that  way.  Anybody  who  has  carefully  read  the 
history  of  ancient  Athens  knows  that. 

"Mr.  Andreae  seems  to  have  touched  a  sympathetic 
chord  in  calling  attention  to  the  tendency  of  the  times 
to  legislate  for  the  benefit  of  the  minority  instead  of  the 
majority." 

Representative  W.  C.  Adamson,  of  the  4th  Congres- 
sional District  of  Georgia  and  Chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Interstate  and  Foreign  Commerce,  supports 
him  as  follows: 

"The  more  important  point  which  Mr.  Andreae  and 
all  patriots  ought  to  begin  to  dwell  upon  in  this  coun- 
try, and  that  is  more  and  more  the  disease  is  spreading 
of  living  by  legislation  to  the  utter  neglect  of  individual 
effort.  Everybody  wants  to  cure  some  pet  ill  by  con- 
gressional legislation,  and  generally  it  is  something 
in  which  he  or  very  few  are  interested,  and  the  general 
public  very  little  affected,  but  the  propositions  are 
always  based  upon  philanthropy  and  pro  bono  publico" 

Congressman  A.  J.  Sabath,  of  the  5th  Illinois  Dis- 
trict, agrees  with  this,  when  he  says: 

"As  to  Mr.  Andreae's  first  observation,  I  desire  to 
say  that  I  fully  agree  with  him  that  the  tendency  is 
to  ignore  customs,  habits,  comforts,  and  every  mode  of 
living,  and  force  upon  the  people  of  this  country  laws 
advocated  by  a  small  minority,  who  believe  that  they 
can  legislate  against  the  great  majority  of  the  personal 
and  civil  liberties,  prescribe  the  mode  of  living  of  such 


Mr.  Andreae's  Banquet  Address.  257 

majority,  and  change  by  law  their  tastes,  legislating 
the  people  into  an  unnatural  state." 

According  to  all  these  and  other  distinguished  com- 
mentators, Mr.  Andreae's  suggestion  that  our  univer- 
sities and  schools  should  establish  chairs  for  teaching 
the  science  of  law-making  appears  to  provide  the  most 
promising  remedy  for  that  which  is  undesirable  in  the 
present  trend  of  our  State  and  national  legislation. 

"Mr.  Andreae  has  called  attention  to  two  things 
which  are  vitally  important  to  every  man,  woman  and 
child  in  America,"  says  President  H.  L.  Stetson,  of 
Kalamazoo  College. 

"For  a  long  time  I  have  viewed  with  great  appre- 
hension the  tendency  to  invade  the  'God-given  rights' 
of  the  individual  with  legal  enactments.  The  time  has 
come  when  law-making  ought  to  receive  as  much  atten- 
tion from  our  institutions  of  learning  as  commerce,  or 
mathematics,  or  chemistry.  I  think  Mr.  Andreae's 
suggestions  ought  to  have  a  wide  circulation." 

And  Representative  George  Graham,  of  the  2nd 
Pennsylvania  Congressional  District,  says: 

"The  subject  Mr.  Andreae  discusses  is  one  of  vital 
importance  to-day.  Legislation  is  running  wildly  along 
lines  that  infringe  needlessly  on  personal  liberty.  The 
lack  of  training  in  law-making  to  which  he  refers  is  a 
grave  reality.  It  would  be  well  to  create  chairs  for 
teaching  the  science  of  law-making,  and  make  this  a 
branch  of  liberal  education." 


258  Mr.  Andreaes  ^Banquet  Address. 

United  States  Senator  G.  W.  Norris,  of  Nebraska, 
goes  further  and  sees  in  the  delays  caused  by  techni- 
calities in  the  courts  the  result  of  ignorance  in  framing 
the  law. 

"It  would,"  he  says,  "be  very  desirable  if  legislators 
having  the  power  to  enact  laws  for  the  control  of  the 
people  had  a  specific  training  along  that  line.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  much  well  intended  legislation  results 
in  injury  for  the  very  reason  that  those  who  frame  the 
law  make  mistakes  in  the  language  and  enable  courts 
that  are  inclined  to  be  technical  to  give  it  a  meaning 
that  was  never  intended.  I  have  often  seen  this 
happen." 

Representative  Charles  B.  Smith,  of  the  41st  Con- 
gressional District  of  New  York,  is  more  conservative 
when  he  says: 

"I  will  concede  that  the  study  of  law-making  in  the 
first  instance  would  be  a  great  help.  You  cannot, 
however,  make  a  specialist  by  means  of  any  system 
such  as  would  be  provided  in  a  school.  I  would  not 
like  to  be  understood  as  opposing  Mr.  Andreae's  idea 
or  suggestion.  I  believe  it  is  a  good  one  for  the  reason 
that  it  may  stir  up  an  interest  in  the  whole  subject  and 
induce  communities  to  select  men  who  are  more  care- 
fully trained  as  their  representatives  in  Congress  and 
in  State  legislatures." 

Congressman  J.  R.  Clancy,  of  the  35th  New  York 
District,  and  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Education, 
says: 


Mr.  Andreae's  Banquet  Address.  259 

"I  quite  agree  with  Mr.  Andreae's  stand  that  law- 
making  should  be  the  work  of  those  trained  for  such 
service,  and  one  of  the  objects  of  the  proposed  National 
University  is  to  undertake  just  this  work,  as  well  as 
the  training  of  men  for  important  government  posi- 
tions." 

Congressman  Frank  T.  O'Hair,  member  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Military  Affairs,  agrees  as  follows: 

"I  am  impressed  with  the  idea  that  attention  should 
be  paid  to  the  science  of  the  method  by  which  laws  are 
made.  I  will  be  glad  to  co-operate  in  an  attempt  to 
accomplish  something  along  this  line." 

It  is  perhaps  natural  that  the  warmest  support  to 
Mr.  Andreae's  suggestion  for  a  university  course  of 
teaching  the  science  of  law-making  should  come  from 
the  colleges  and  universities  of  the  country.  Many 
educators  commented  at  length  on  this  feature  of  Mr. 
Andreae's  address,  and  practically  all  of  them  agreed 
with  his  suggestion. 

"I  do  believe  that  a  chair  such  as  has  been  suggested, 
thoroughly  well  endowed,  would  serve  a  most  useful 
purpose,"  said  President  C.  H.  Spooner,  of  Norwich 
University,  Northfield,  Vt.,  and  President  James  E. 
Allen,  of  Davis  and  Elkins  College,  Elkins,  W.  Va., 
said: 

"Mr.  Andreae's  ideas  are  very  timely  and  nothing 
will  so  much  help,  in  my  humble  judgment,  to  prevent 
the  confusion  and  unnecessary  bulk  of  new  laws  com- 


260  Mr.  Andreae's  Banquet  Address. 

ing  from  our  legislatures  and  congress  annually  as  a 
protracted  and  thorough  course  of  study  along  these 
lines." 

Henry  Louis  Smith,  President  of  Washington  and 
Lee  University,  Lexington,  Va.,  adds  this  comment: 

"I  think  the  great  universities  with  schools  of  law, 
commerce,  etc.,  might  well  establish  chairs  of  law- 
making,  although  these  could  only  deal  with  broad, 
fundamental  principles,  teaching  thus  the  science  of 
law-making  rather  than  actual  practice  or  art  of 
legislation." 

W.  A.  Harper,  President  of  Elon  College,  Elon, 
N.  C.,  also  believes  in  the  idea. 

"I  am  in  sympathy  with  the  general  spirit  of  Mr. 
Andreae's  utterance,"  he  says,  "though  not  with  some 
of  his  detailed  statements.  Yet  I  do  think  that  the 
tendency  to  enact  every  fad  at  once  into  law  is  supreme 
folly."  ' 

And  President  E.  N.  Bryan,  of  the  State  College  of 
Washington,  adds: 

"I  have  long  observed  the  swing  of  the  pendulum 
away  from  personal  liberty  and  away  from  customary 
law  toward  the  attempt  to  submerge  the  liberty  of  the 
individual  in  the  will  of  the  masses." 

President  II.  D.  Hoover,  of  Carthage  College, 
Carthage,  111.,  takes  a  somewhat  different  angle,  when 
he  says: 

"It  is  my  opinion  that  our  legislators  are  discoverers 


Mr.  Andreae's  Banquet  Address.  261 

of  law  and  not  makers  of  law  when  they  fulfill  their 
true  functions.  Law  cannot  reform,  recreate  or  trans- 
form (speaking  now  of  civil  law).  Law  is  a  great 
teacher.  The  cost  of  trying  to  make  the  defectives 
whole  when  they  cannot  be  anything  but  defectives  is 
an  unwarranted  tax  upon  the  resources  of  the  normal." 

Charles  H.  Levermore,  of  the  World  Peace  Founda- 
tion, Boston,  calls  attention  to  one  university  in  which 
there  is  already  a  chair  for  teaching  the  science  of  law- 
making. 

"I  think  it  is  true,"  he  says,  "that  there  is  now  and 
always  has  been,  a  danger  that  many  well-meaning 
people,  especially  those  who  are  eager  for  reform,  act 
as  though  they  thought  that  legislation  could  establish 
custom.  Our  colleges  and  universities  might  help  out 
legislators  far  more  than  they  have  done  in  the  past. 
I  believe  that  we  may  point  to  at  least  one  university 
which  is  making  its  full  contribution  to  the  legislative 
needs  of  the  State  in  which  the  university  is  situated. 
That  institution  is  the  University  of  Wisconsin." 

It  is  a  source  of  much  gratification  that  the  foreign- 
language  press  of  this  country  should  have  been  first  in 
presenting  the  all-important  question  discussed  in  these 
interesting  comments  to  those  who  lead  the  thought  of 
the  nation.  The  comments  themselves,  emanating  as 
they  do  from  many  of  our  most  distinguished  citizens, 
prove  conclusively  that  the  great  work  now  being 
accomplished  by  the  foreign-language  press  in  awaken- 


262  Mr.  Andreaes  banquet  Address. 

ing  the  citizenship  generally  to  the  danger  confronting 
its  most  cherished  liberties  is  in  accord  with  the  best 
and  most  earnest  thought  of  our  time. 


Nation -Wide  Prohibition  and  Its 
Effect  upon  the  American  Hotels 
and  Their  Patrons 

Address  Delivered  Before  the  American  Hotel  Pro- 
tective Association  of  the  United  States  and 
Canada,  at  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  New  York,  on 
April  14,  1914. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen: 

Before  I  approach  the  subject  upon  which  you  have 
honored  me  with  an  invitation  to  speak  before  you 
to-day,  permit  me  to  say  that  I  believe  it  to  be  neither 
your  desire  to  listen  to  my  views  or  to  any  one  else's 
views  on  that  subject  in  its  moral,  ethical,  or  sociolog- 
ical bearings,  nor  my  province  to  discuss  such  views 
before  a  gathering  of  this  kind.  The  question  whether 
men  shall  continue  to  exercise  the  right  they  have 
enjoyed  from  time  immemorial  to  drink  wines,  beers, 
and  other  alcoholic  stimulants  has,  unfortunately,  within 
recent  years,  passed  beyond  the  realm  of  opinion  and 
become,  at  least  on  the  part  of  those  wrho  take  the' 
negative  side  of  this  question,  a  matter  of  dogma  pure 
and  simple,  and  you  cannot  argue  with  a  man  on  a 
matter  of  creed,  nor  reason  with  him  on  a  question  of 
faith. 


264  Nation- Wide  Prohibition. 

There  is,  however,  one  incontrovertible  fact  bearing 
on  this  question  which  no  one  interested  in  its  solution 
can  afford  to  ignore,  and  that  is  that  a  very  large  pro- 
portion of  mankind  does  exercise  this  right,  in  its 
opinion  without  detriment  either  to  itself  or  to  others, 
and  that  it  is  not  likely,  without  a  struggle,  to  surren- 
der that  right,  merely  because  a  certain  percentage  of 
men  does  not  exercise  it  as  judiciously  as  it  might,  or 
because  a  certain  other  percentage  of  men  has  firmly 
determined  in  its  own  mind  that  mankind  as  a  whole 
shall  go  without  it. 

Now,  mankind  as  a  whole  is  a  pretty  big  fellow,  and 
has  certainly  some  claim  to  be  consulted  in  a  matter  so 
personal  to  itself  as  the  one  we  are  reviewing,  and  it  is 
from  this  standpoint,  the  correctness  of  which  few  will 
doubt,  that  I  propose  to  lay  before  you  (whom  I  may, 
I  think,  fitly  describe  as  the  housekeepers  of  the  nation 
at  large)  the  question  of  prohibition  as  it  confronts  the 
country  to-day. 

There  are  at  present,  as  you  all  probably  know,  three 
resolutions  pending  before  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  two  providing  for  an  amendment  to  the  Federal 
Constitution  by  virtue  of  which  the  manufacture,  sale 
and  importation  of  alcoholic  beverages  are  to  be  forever 
prohibited  in  this  country,  and  the  third  providing  for 
an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  prohibiting  the  man- 
ufacture and  sale  of  distilled  liquor.  The  passage  of  a 
resolution  to  amend  the  Constitution  of  the  United 


Nation- Wide  Prohibition.  265 

States  requires  a  two-thirds  affirmative  vote  in  both 
houses  of  Congress,  and  the  further  ratification  of  that 
vote  by  three-fourths  of  the  legislatures  of  the  forty- 
eight  States  comprising  the  Union,  before  such  amend- 
ment can  become  part  of  the  basic  law  of  the  country. 

On  the  face  of  it,  then,  it  would  seem  as  if  nothing 
short  of  the  overwhelming  consent  of  the  people  at 
large  were  required  to  give  effect  to  the  desire  of  those 
who  aim  to  impose  this  drastic  law  upon  the  whole 
nation.  But  the  real  fact  is  just  the  reverse. 

The  action  now  asked  of  Congress  is  the  mere  sub- 
mission to  the  legislatures  of  the  individual  States  of 
the  question,  "  Shall  the  people  of  this  country,  by  an 
alteration  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  be  deprived  of 
the  personal  privilege  of  obtaining  alcoholic  beverages?" 
The  individual  congressman,  therefore,  is  not  required 
to  cast  his  vote  either  for  or  against  depriving  the 
people  of  that  privilege,  but  ostensibly  merely  in  favor 
of  allowing  the  people  to  decide  for  themselves  whether 
they  shall  be  so  deprived.  I  say  ostensibly,  because,  as 
I  shall  show  you  later  on,  it  is  not  the  people  who  will 
eventually  decide  this  question,  but  a  comparatively 
insignificant  minority  of  the  people.  Now,  though 
considerably  more  than  one-third  of  the  members  of 
Congress  may  be,  and,  according  to  the  belief  of  many, 
actually  are  personally  opposed  to  the  principle  of 
prohibition,  yet  such  is  the  vindictive  passion  with 
which  this  principle  is  insisted  on  by  those  who  wish  to 


266  Nation-Wide  Prohibition. 

see  it  established,  and  so  relentless  and  unscrupulous 
their  persecution  and  vilification  of  those  who  oppose 
them,  either  politically  or  otherwise,  that  the  average 
congressman  is  only  too  glad  to  avail  himself  of  the 
opportunity  to  compromise,  on  the  one  hand  with  them, 
and  on  the  other  hand  with  his  own  conscience,  by  con- 
senting to  leave  the  final  determination  of  the  question 
to  the  country  at  large. 

It  is  this  fact  which  renders  the  passage  of  one  or 
the  other  of  the  resolutions  in  question,  should  either 
ever  reach  the  floor  of  Congress,  an  almost  universally 
admitted  certainty,  though  only  a  minority  of  the 
representatives  of  the  people  may  favor  the  amendment 
themselves. 

The  same  condition,  only  in  a  greatly  aggravated 
degree,  attends  the  ratification  of  the  resolution  by  the 
legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the  States  of  the  Union. 
Here,  too,  the  general  impression  is  that,  if  ratified,  an 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  people  will  have  ap- 
proved the  resolution,  whereas  the  fact  is  that  a  com- 
paratively small  minority  of  the  people  will  have  the 
power  to  give  final  effect  to  the  resolution  against  the 
desire  and  the  will  of  the  rest  of  the  community.  And 
for  this  reason:  Each  of  the  forty-eight  States  is 
entitled  to  cast,  through  its  legislature,  one  vote  on  the 
question,  so  that,  for  instance,  the  State  of  Nevada, 
with  a  little  over  80,000  population,  has  exactly  the 
same  voice  in  deciding  it  as  the  State  of  New  York 


Nation-Wide  Prohibition.  207 

has  with  her  population  of  over  9,000,000  souls.  Nay, 
a  mere  majority  of  Nevada's  voters,  since  a  majority 
determines  the  attitude  of  the  legislature  on  such  a 
question,  can  offset  the  entire  voting  strength  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  even  if  every  voter  in  that  State 
were  opposed  to  that  which  a  bare  majority  of  Nevada's 
voters  favored.  Indeed,  if  you  review  the  forty-eight 
States  in  the  order  of  their  population,  you  will  find 
that  thirty-six  States  with  a  total  population  of  just 
over  forty  million  will  outvote,  by  a  mere  majority  of 
those  forty  million,  the  remaining  twelve  States  with  a 
total  population  of  nearly  fifty-four  million,  though 
every  single  one  of  those  fifty-four  million  people  were 
opposed  to  that  which  the  majority  of  the  forty  million 
favored. 

I  think  you  will  admit,  quite  aside  from  the  merits 
or  demerits  of  the  question  itself,  that  this  is  an  extra- 
ordinarily dangerous  situation,  overshadowing  all  the 
moral,  economical  and  industrial  aspects  which  that 
question  presents.  In  other  words,  whatever  the  opin- 
ion of  individual  men  may  be  with  regard  to  these  latter 
aspects,  and  they  are,  of  course,  subject  to  opinion  and 
open  to  argument,  though  the  prohibitionist  arbitrarily 
denies  this  fact,  there  can  surely  be  only  one  opinion 
regarding  the  desirability,  or  indeed  the  possibility,  of 
imposing  the  will  of  a  comparatively  small  minority  of 
men  upon  a  very  large  majority  in  a  matter  so  closely 
affecting  the  mo,ct  cherished,  and  hitherto  undisputed, 


268  Nation-Wide  Prohibition. 

right  of  the  individual  to  pursue  his  own  personal  cus- 
toms, whether  good,  bad  or  indifferent,  and  to  regulate 
his  own  conduct  within  the  four  walls  of  his  own  home. 
This  is  the  main  aspect  of  this  many-angled  question 
which  I  desire  to  present  to  you,  and  if  I  confine  myself 
to  it  almost  exclusively  it  is  for  the  reason  that  its  other 
aspects  have  been  so  fully  discussed  that  I  could  hardly 
hope  to  add  anything  new  to  that  which  has  already 
been  said  about  them.  That  the  resolution  aiming  to 
prohibit  the  individual  from  drinking  wines,  beers  and 
other  liquors  in  his  own  home  incidentally  contemplates 
the  destruction  of  over  a  thousand  million  dollars' 
worth  of  property  without  compensating  those  who, 
under  the  sanction  and  the  implied  guarantee  of  the 
law,  have  invested  their  means  in  that  property,  and 
without  reimbursing  them  for  the  loss  of  a  business 
which  they  have  established,  not  to  create,  but  to  meet, 
a  public  demand,  the  legitimacy  of  which  even  those 
who  aim  to  destroy  the  supply  have  never  ventured  to 
question,  is  of  course  a  matter  of  very  grave  import, 
affecting  the  stability  of  all  and  every  other  kind  of 
business,  and  the  sacredness  of  all  and  every  other  kind 
of  property  right.  But  you  know  this  as  well  as  I  do. 
Indeed,  in  so  far  as  your  own  business  has  of  necessity 
been  so  arranged  as  to  comply  with  this  demand  of  the 
public,  you  are  yourselves  personally  interested  in  this 
aspect  and  therefore  more  competent  than  I  am  to 
judge  in  how  far  your  own  business  and  property  rights 
will  be  affected. 


Nation-Wide  Prohibition.  269 

On  the  other  hand,  that  the  attempt  to  compel  the 
people  to  abstain  from  the  use  of  beers,  wines  and  other 
liquors  will  throw  two  million  wage-earners  upon  the 
already  overstocked  labor  market  of  the  country  is,  at 
least  in  my  estimation,  a  consideration  of  even  greater 
moment  than  the  question  of  property  loss,  and  weighs 
far  more  heavily  in  the  scales  against  the  so-called 
moral  aspect  of  this  whole  question,  which  the  advocates 
of  prohibition  so  strongly  insist  upon. 

These  advocates  deny  the  injurious  result  of  prohibi- 
tion to  the  working  man,  claiming,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  money  spent  for  beers,  wines  and  other  liquors 
goes  only  to  a  very  small  extent  towards  the  payment 
of  labor,  and,  in  the  second  place,  that  such  labor  as 
may  be  dislodged  by  prohibition  will  be  quickly  ab- 
sorbed in  other  trades,  whose  business  will  be  enor- 
mously increased  by  the  purchases  of  necessities  made 
with  the  monies  the  people  will  save  when  they  cease 
spending  anything  for  drink. 

I  would  like,  if  you  will  permit  me  to  digress  for  a 
few  moments  from  what  I  have  called  the  main  aspect 
of  the  question,  to  point  out  the  obvious  fallacies  upon 
which  these  two  very  random  assertions  are  based,  and 
incidentally  to  bring  to  your  attention  the  extraordi- 
nary want  of  the  sense  of  proportion  which  is  the 
characteristic  feature  of  all  the  reasoning  of  these  excel- 
lent people,  and  which,  unfortunately,  infects  those 
whom  they  influence. 


270  Nation-Wide  Prohibition. 

The  annual  drink  bill  of  the  United  States,  according 
to  government  statistics,  approximates  two  billion  dol- 
lars. A  certain  clergyman,  not  a  prohibitionist,  but  a 
temperance  advocate,  as  I  hope  we  all  are,  happened 
recently  to  cull  this  interesting  fact  from  a  prohibition 
paper,  together  with  the  statement  accompanying  it  to 
the  effect  that  only  a  very  small  percentage  of  this 
huge  amount  went  in  payment  for  labor,  and  he  was  so 
exercised  by  what  he  called  this  staggering  revelation  of 
the  excessive  indulgence  in  drink  on  the  part  of  the 
people,  and  the  waste  of  money  it  involved,  that  he 
issued  a  statement  insisting  that  something  should  be 
done  to  eradicate  an  evil  which  was  evidently  sapping 
the  very  vitals  of  humanity,  and  would  shortly  result 
in  leaving  only  a  handful  of  temperate  individuals,  like 
himself,  to  people  the  earth. 

Now,  I  have  no  doubt  that  this  statement,  like  many 
other  statements  from  similar  sources,  was  religiously 
accepted  as  a  fact  by  hundreds  of  good  and  well- 
meaning  people,  who,  following  the  example  of  their 
pastor,  had  seen  nothing  wrong  in  indulging  temper- 
ately in  what  I  may  call  the  liquid  pleasures  of  the 
table,  but  who,  with  this  alleged  proof  of  the  intemper- 
ance of  the  majority  of  their  fellow-citizens  confronting 
them,  felt  that  probably  nothing  short  of  absolute 
general  prohibition  was  capable  of  saving  the  human 
race  from  rapid  total  extinction. 

But  what  is  the  real  truth?    First  and  foremost,  the 


Nation- Wide  Prohibition.  271 

real  truth  is  that  this  worthy  clergyman  has  utterly 
failed  to  realize  what  a  big  country  he  is  living  in. 
There  are  upwards  of  93,000,000  people  in  the  United 
States,  and  if  you  divide  93,000,000  people  into  $2,000,- 
000,000  per  annum,  you  will  find  that  it  produces  a 
little  over  $21  per  head  per  annum,  or  less  than  six 
cents  per  head  per  day  spent  in  drink.  This  is  less  than 
the  average  cost  of  a  pint  bottle  of  beer  at  retail.  The 
pastor  in  question,  therefore,  who  considers  he  is 
indulging  temperately  when  he  takes  a  pint  of  beer  for 
lunch,  and  another  pint  for  dinner,  is  in  reality  con- 
suming, by  his  own  reckoning,  just  double  his  average 
proportion  of  what  he  calls  the  staggering  excess  of 
drink  consumed  by  the  nation  at  large,  and  conse- 
quently, if  his  prediction  regarding  the  impending 
extinction  of  the  human  race  owing  to  excessive  drink- 
ing is  correct,  he  himself  will  not  be  included  in  the 
handful  of  temperate  men  who  will  soon  be  left  over 
to  people  the  earth. 

He  does  not  realize,  in  short,  that  if  only  half  of  the 
population  of  the  United  States  drinks  in  just  the 
same  proportion  as  he  does,  the  nation's  drink  bill  will 
still  amount  to  $2,000,000,000. 

But  what  is  of  greater  significance  is  that  he  does 
not  realize  that  every  cent  of  this  $2,000,000,000  spent 
in  drink,  including  the  $225,000,000  which  goes  in  the 
form  of  taxes  to  the  government  of  the  United  States, 
pays  for  labor,  since  the  market  value  of  every  com- 


272  Nation-Wide  Prohibition. 

modity  which  nature  brings  forth  represents  just 
exactly  the  sum  total  of  the  wages  paid  for  the  labor 
employed  in  producing  and  bringing  it  to  the  market, 
plus  the  interest  on  the  capital  required  to  set  such 
labor  in  motion,  which  is  itself  nothing  more  than  the 
accumulated  product  of  labor,  and  cannot  be  expended 
except  in  payment  for  labor.  Only  the  earth,  in  fact, 
works  without  pay.  Hence,  if  $2,000,000,000  worth 
of  drink  is  not  produced  and  consumed,  something  else 
must  be  produced  and  consumed,  and  something  else 
must  be  taxed,  in  its  stead,  in  order,  respectively,  to 
make  up  for  the  loss  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  billion 
dollars  in  the  government's  annual  revenues,  and  to 
give  employment  to  at  least  2,000,000  wage-earners 
who  depend  for  their  existence  and  that  of  their  fam- 
ilies upon  the  nation's  drink  bill. 

The  theoretical  mind  of  the  prohibitionist  brushes 
these  practical  difficulties  aside  as  if  they  were  too 
paltry  for  serious  consideration.  But,  then,  as  a  rule 
he  has  no  personal  risk  in  the  experiment  he  is  suggest- 
ing, and  can  therefore  bravely  afford  to  let  both  the 
capitalist  and  the  working  man  take  their  chances.  He 
is  simply  satisfied  in  his  own  mind  that  two  million 
laboring  men  can  easily  find  employment  in  other 
trades,  becauses  he  assumes  that,  when  all  men  cease 
drinking,  they  will  promptly  spend  $2,000,000,000  a 
year  more  for  clothes,  shoes,  hats,  gloves,  and  other 
commodities,  which  labor  must  produce.  Nor  is  he  at 


Nation-Wide  Prohibition.  273 

all  concerned  about  the  revenues  of  the  government, 
because  he  is  equally  satisfied  in  his  own  mind  that 
when  people  are  once  deprived  of  the  means  of  obtain- 
ing alcohol,  all  poorhouses,  insane  asylums,  jails,  and 
most  of  the  law  courts  will  go  out  of  existence  (dis- 
lodging more  labor,  by  the  way)  and  the  sum  thus 
saved  to  the  government  in  the  maintenance  of  these 
institutions  will  more  than  balance  the  loss  of  revenue 
from  the  sale  of  wines,  beers  and  other  liquors. 

Alas,  it  is  needless  to  discuss  all  these  beautiful  theo- 
ries, because  they  are  all  based  upon  the  one  funda- 
mental fallacy  that,  if  the  manufacture,  sale  and 
importation  of  alcoholic  beverages  is  prohibited,  men 
will  cease  drinking  such  beverages.  The  fact  is  that 
the  existence  of  breweries,  distilleries  and  wineries  is 
the  effect  and  not  the  cause  of  men's  inclination  to 
drink,  and  their  destruction,  and  the  abolition  of  the 
sale  of  wines,  beers  and  other  liquors  in  hotels,  stores, 
or  similar  establishments,  can  neither  destroy  the  desire 
of  men  to  obtain  these  commodities,  nor  deprive  them 
of  the  means  of  doing  so.  Those  who  ignore  this 
obvious  fact  forget  that  men  drank,  some  unhappily 
to  excess,  long  before  breweries,  distilleries  and  wineries 
were  built,  because  there  is  nothing  that  grows  in 
Nature  from  which  alcohol  cannot  easily  be  obtained  in 
practically  unlimited  quantities  by  all  who  desire  it, 
and  that  the  number  of  those  who  do  desire  it  is  over- 
whelmingly large  is  proved  beyond  the  peradventure  of 


274  Nation-Wide  Prohibition. 

a  doubt  by  our  nation's  annual  drink  bill  of  $2,000,000,- 
000.  In  other  words,  breweries,  distilleries  and  wineries 
were  not  established  for  the  mere  purpose  of  providing 
men  with  alcohol,  which  they  had  theretofore  just  as 
easily,  and  perhaps  more  cheaply,  produced  for  them- 
selves, but  for  the  purpose  of  providing  them  with 
alcohol  unmixed  with  the  various  attendant  poisons 
that  accompany  it  whenever  produced  by  the  crude  and 
unscientific  methods  of  private  manufacture. 

Go  into  any  prohibition  State  and  sample  the  fearful 
alcoholic  concoctions  with  which  the  people  there  supply 
themselves,  in  lieu,  and  usually  in  excess,  of  the  puri- 
fied article  they  are  prevented  from  obtaining,  and  you 
will  find  ample  proof  of  my  statement.  In  short,  as 
Mark  Twain  has  so  quaintly  put  it:  "Since  men  can 
get  their  tipple  out  of  a  table  leg  or  a  wooden  fence 
rail,  what  is  the  use  of  talking  about  prohibition?" 

Gentlemen,  I  have  dwelt  upon  these  facts,  not  in 
order  to  convince  you  of  their  truth,  because  their  truth 
is  as  old  as  the  hills,  but  in  order  to  establish  the  con- 
clusion that  the  nation's  drink  bill,  which  the  prohibi- 
tionist points  to  as  proof  of  the  necessity  for  prohibi- 
tion, is,  on  the  contrary,  the  strongest  conceivable  proof 
of  its  futility.  If  this  conclusion  is  wrong,  the  sooner 
we  find  it  out,  without  putting  it  to  the  dangerous  test 
of  statutory  law,  the  better,  and  there  is  no  body  of 
men  in  this  country  better  equipped  to  find  it  out  than 
you  are.  I  will  go  further  and  say  that  there  are  no 


Nation-Wide  Prohibition.  275 

men  upon  whom  the  duty  is  more  clearly  laid  to  find 
it  out  than  you. 

I  took  the  liberty  of  referring  to  you,  at  the  outset 
of  my  address,  as  the  housekeepers  of  the  nation,  and 
you  assuredly  are.  The  American  hotel  is  the  home 
of  the  American  citizen  when  he  is  traveling,  and  the 
percentage  of  Americans  who  do  not  travel  at  some 
time  or  other  in  their  lives  is  very  small.  The  most 
successful  hotel  man,  I  believe,  is  he  who  is  most  expert 
in  managing  to  make  his  guests  forget  that  they  are 
not  in  their  own  home,  and  he  does  so  by  placing  within 
the  reach  and  within  the  command  of  his  guests  those 
comforts  which  they  are  accustomed  to  and  desire  to 
have  within  the  privacy  of  their  own  four  walls.  I 
believe  that  ninety,  if  not  ninety-five  or  ninety-nine, 
per  cent  of  the  hotels  of  the  country  supply  wines, 
beers  and  other  liquors  to  their  guests,  and  I  presume 
that  they  do  not  do  so  with  the  purely  malicious 
intention  of  causing  them  to  yield  to  a  temptation  which 
they  are  yearning  and  praying  to  escape  from,  but  in 
order  to  meet  a  genuine  and  spontaneous  demand  on 
their  part. 

Some  of  you,  I  believe,  have  already  gone  on  record 
in  protesting  against  the  proposed  amendment  of  the 
Constitution  providing  for  nation-wide  prohibition  of 
the  manufacture,  sale  and  importation  of  alcoholic 
beverages.  I  now  suggest  that  you  follow  up  this 
action  by  asking  your  guests,  in  whose  behalf  I  pre- 


276  Nation-Wide  Prohibition. 

sume  it  was  taken,  to  either  sustain  or  repudiate  it. 
In  other  words,  it  is  in  your  power,  as  it  is  in  no  one 
else's  power,  to  let  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
know  just  exactly  what  the  people  of  the  United 
States  think  of  these  prohibition  amendments,  by  ask- 
ing your  guests  to  express  themselves  either  for  or 
against  them. 

You  can  do  this  by  placing  in  the  letter  file  of  each 
of  your  guests,  on  any  given  day,  or  within  any  given 
period,  a  printed  form  of  petition  to  Congress,  setting 
forth  the  fact  that  certain  resolutions  providing  for 
nation-wide  prohibition  are  now  pending  in  the  Con- 
gress; that  the  hotels  of  the  country  are  interested  to 
learn  the  attitude  of  their  patrons  towards  such  reso- 
lutions; and  that  each  guest  is  therefore  requested  to 
sign  said  petition  either  for  or  against  their  passage 
and  deliver  it  to  the  hotel  management  for  transmission 
to  Congress. 

This  will  be  tantamount  to  a  representative  poll  of 
the  people  of  the  country  on  a  question  which  the  Con- 
gress is  to-day  considering,  without  having  any  means 
of  ascertaining  the  true  sentiment  of  the  voters  with 
regard  to  it. 

I  am  fully  alive  to  the  fact  that  this  cannot  be  done 
without  -careful  preparation,  and  that  it  should  not  be 
done  without  providing  the  strictest  possible  safe- 
guards that  will  secure  an  unquestionably  fair  and 
impartial  expression  of  public  opinion.  The  arrange- 


Nation-Wide  Prohibition.  '277 

ments  for  carrying  it  out  should  therefore  be  placed  in 
the  hands  of  a  committee,  with  power  to  appoint  sub- 
committees in  every  State,  whose  duty  it  will  be  to 
supervise  all  details  connected  with  this  poll,  and  to 
settle  all  questions  that  may  arise  concerning  it. 

I  am  authorized  by  the  National  Association  of  Com- 
merce and  Labor,  consisting  of  a  large  number  of 
Merchants'  and  Manufacturers'  Associations  through- 
out the  country,  all  of  whose  members,  representing 
many  thousands  of  firms,  are  actively  interested  in 
this  question,  to  offer  the  assistance  and  co-operation  of 
that  association  in  the  execution  of  this  work,  and  to 
place  its  very  extensive  organization  at  your  disposal 
for  the  purpose  of  perfecting  and  carrying  it  out  in 
all  its  details,  and  if  it  should  be  your  pleasure  to 
adopt  my  suggestion,  I  would  ask  that  you  empower 
your  committee  to  act  in  conjunction  with  that  associa- 
tion and  avail  itself  of  the  facilities  it  offers  in  putting 
the  proposed  plan  in  operation. 

I  suggest,  furthermore,  that  your  committee  be 
empowered  to  place  itself  in  communication  with  all 
the  clubs  of  the  country  and  invite  them  to  co-operate 
with  you  in  this  work  by  taking. a  similar  poll  of  their 
own  members. 

Gentlemen,  I  urge  this  action  upon  you,  regardless 
of  whether  you  are  individually  believers  in  prohibition 
or  not,  and  I  do  so,  not  for  your  sake,  but  for  the  sake 
of  those  whom  you  serve,  and  whose  voice  in  such  a 


278  Nation-Wide  Prohibition. 

matter  none  but  they  who  hold  the  principle  of  demo- 
cratic government  in  contempt  can  presume  to  dis- 
regard. 

Many  of  us  may  differ  individually  on  the  question  of 
what  measure  of  personal  freedom  is  best  calculated  to 
promote  the  welfare  of  the  community  at  large,  but 
whether  one  of  us  believes  that  a  maximum  of  such 
freedom,  and  another  believes  that  a  minimum  of  such 
freedom,  is  most  beneficial,  is  a  matter  of  no  moment 
at  all.  It  is  the  will  of  the  people  that  governs  the 
government  of  this  country,  and  it  is  upon  the  will  of 
the  people  that  the  surrender,  or  the  non-surrender,  of 
their  individual  rights  and  liberties  depends.  Indeed, 
the  success  or  the  failure  of  all  laws  in  a  common- 
wealth like  ours  hinges  upon  the  correct  interpretation 
of  the  people's  will  on  the  part  of  those  who  make 
those  laws,  for  what  we  rather  grandiloquently  term 
the  majesty  of  the  law  is  not  conferred  upon  laws  by 
those  who  make  them,  nor  by  those  who  execute  them, 
but  by  the  mass  of  the  people  who  accept  them,  ap- 
prove them,  and  ratify  them. 

If  the  mass  of  the  people,  whose  collective  wisdom 
is  superior  to  the  wisdom  of  any  legislative  body  con- 
ceivable, would  take  as  determined  an  attitude  towards 
the  laws  of  the  land  before  they  are  enacted  as  it  does 
towards  the  laws  of  the  land  after  they  are  enacted, 
many  of  the  troubles  from  which  our  republic  is  to-day 
suffering  would  be  eliminated.  It  lies  in  this  case  with 


Nation-Wide  Prohibition.  279 

you  to  become  the  instrument  through  which  the  nation 
at  large  can  unequivocally  define  its  real  attitude 
towards  a  measure  which,  if  enacted,  will  constitute  the 
most  radical  departure  in  the  government  of  men  since 
the  days  of  the  ancient  patriarchs. 

If  you  consent  to  become  that  instrument,  you  will 
perform,  not  only  a  service  to  yourselves  and  to  your 
clients,  but  a  patriotic  service  to  the  country  at  large; 
you  will  earn,  not  only  the  recognition  of  the  people  to 
whose  views  you  thus  give  the  means  of  utterance,  but 
also  the  gratitude  of  the  people's  representatives,  the 
faithful  performance  of  whose  duty  to  the  nation 
is  conditioned  upon  a  correct  knowledge  of  those  views. 
And,  above  all,  you  will  discharge  a  duty  clearly  im- 
posed upon  yourselves,  as  the  nation's  housekeepers, 
namely,  to  see  that,  if  a  change  is  to  be  made  in  the 
order  of  the  nation's  household,  it  be  made  with  the 
full  knowledge  and  consent  of  the  householders  them- 
selves, and  not  at  the  mere  dictation  of  a  factional  body 
of  citizens  who  represent  themselves  as  the  accredited 
spokesmen  of  those  householders. 

Gentlemen,  I  ask  you  to  give  this  matter  the  earnest 
and  urgent  consideration  it  deserves.  Your  ability  to 
carry  it  out  is  beyond  question.  To  believe  that  the 
will  to  do  so  is  lacking  in  you  would  mean  to  doubt  the 
judgment,  the  loyalty,  and  the  patriotism  of  men  wrho 
represent  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  magnificent 
institutions  of  this  country — the  American  hotel. 


Personal  Liberty 
i. 

One  of  the  most  dangerous  errors  to  which  many  of 
those  are  subject  who  let  others  do  their  thinking  for 
them  is  the  belief  that,  because  the  liberty  of  the 
individual  to  select  his  own  beverage  or  form  of  amuse- 
ment happens  at  present  to  be  the  most  prominent 
matter  of  controversy  between  the  foes  and  the  advo- 
cates of  personal  liberty,  therefore  the  question  of 
personal  liberty  begins  and  ends  with  the  so-called 
drink  question. 

This  question  is  a  mere  incident  of  the  greater  and 
more  far-reaching  question  of  individual  liberty,  though 
the  stage  it  has  now  reached  in  this  country  typifies, 
perhaps  more  strikingly,  and  certainly  more  intelligibly 
to  the  average  mind  than  anything  else  could  do,  the 
critical  situation  into  which  this  greater  controversy 
has  entered. 

The  history  of  civilization,  when  stripped  of  its 
unessential  features,  is  largely  the  record  of  man's 
strangely  contradictory  struggle;  on  the  one  hand,  to 
assert  his  right  to  the  exercise  of  his  individual  tastes, 
opinions  and  beliefs,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  when 
he  has  succeeded  in  securing  that  right  for  himself, 


Personal  Liberty.  281 

to  arrogate  to  himself  the  privilege  of  denying  the 
same  right  to  those  whose  tastes,  opinions  and  beliefs 
differ  from  his  own. 

For  how  many  hundreds,  nay,  thousands  of  years, 
for  instance,  have  men  striven  to  gain  their  religious 
freedom;  i.  e.,  the  right  to  worship  their  Maker  accord- 
ing to  their  individual  beliefs  and  the  dictates  of  their 
own  consciences?  And  have  they  finally  succeeded? 
Nine  men  out  of  ten  will  undoubtedly  answer  the 
question  in  the  affirmative.  But  will  they  answer  the 
question  quite  truthfully? 

It  is  true  that  we  no  longer  burn  those  at  the  stake 
from  whose  opinions  we  differ.  But  has  the  desire 
to  do  so  entirely  died  out  among  us?  We  no  longer 
persecute  those  of  whose  form  of  divine  worship  we 
disapprove,  and  drive  them  into  other  lands,  where, 
peradventure,  their  form  of  worship  will  establish  itself 
as  the  dominant  form,  and  its  votaries  will  promptly 
proceed  to  drive  out  all  others.  But,  again,  has  the 
desire  to  do  so  entirely  died  out  among  us? 

The  methods  of  men  change  with  the  changing 
times.  But  human  nature  remains  always  the  same, 
though  it  may  manifest  itself  in  ever-changing  forms, 
and  assert  itself  in  an  infinite  variety  of  guises. 

It  is  a  curious  and  significant  fact  that  since  civilized 
men  have,  outwardly,  at  least,  outgrown  their  fierce 
desire  to  dictate  to  others  just  what  manner  and  form 
the  relations  between  them  and  their  Creator  shall 


282  Personal  Liberty. 

assume,  a  strong  tendency  has  developed  in  certain 
denominational  bodies  to  carry  their  influence  beyond 
the  sphere  of  matters  spiritual,  and  bring  it  to  bear, 
with  all  the  force  of  militant  dogmatism,  upon  the 
purely  mundane  affairs  of  men. 

As  long  as  the  effect  of  such  a  tendency  is  confined  to 
those  belonging  to  the  particular  religious  denomina- 
tion which  manifests  it,  no  valid  objection  can  be 
raised  against  it.  But  the  moment  it  begins  to  extend 
beyond  that  circle  we  are  confronted  at  once  with  a 
repetition,  in  a  new  form,  of  the  old  struggle  to  subject 
the  conscience  of  one  man,  or  one  set  of  men,  to  the 
conscience  of  another  man,  or  another  set  of  men. 

The  danger  with  which  such  a  condition  is  fraught 
—and  that  the  condition  exists  in  this  country  to-day 
no  dispassionate  observer  will  deny— is  manifest.  That 
danger  is  all  the  greater  because  the  admirable  achieve- 
ments of  government,  aided  by  modern  progressive 
science,  in  protecting  men  against  the  inroads  of  dis- 
ease, the  dangers  of  accident,  and  the  multitudinous 
effects  of  individual  and  collective  human  greed,  indif- 
ference and  carelessness,  are  hailed  by  some  as  a  reason 
or  proof  that  it  is  also  the  function  of  government  to 
dictate  to  men  generally  how  they  shall  shape  their 
habits,  or  to  what  extent  they  shall  indulge  their  appe- 
tites, and  engage  in  their  various  pleasures  and  pas- 
times. 

That  it  is  the  province  of  religion  to  influence  men 


Personal  Liberty.  283 

through  their  individual  consciences  in  these  regards 
will  be  freely  admitted  by  every  reasonable  man.  But 
whenever  any  religious  body  departs  from  this  spiritual 
method  of  procedure,  and  appeals,  with  all  the  force 
of  political  pressure,  to  the  mundane  power  of  govern- 
ment to  accomplish  by  dint  of  law  what  moral  or 
religious  persuasion  has  failed  to  accomplish,  there 
must  inevitably  ensue,  not  only  a  conflict  between  the 
government  and  the  individual  consciences  of  th^ 
governed,  but  a  conflict  between  the  denominations 
themselves,  which  differ  on  these  and  other  cognate 
subjects  as  radically  as  they  differ  on  matters  of  creed 
and  worship. 

Perhaps  no  more  striking  instance  in  point  could  be 
cited  than  that  presented  by  the  laws  in  this  country 
regulating  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath.  Most  men 
agree,  either  on  religious  or  other  grounds,  that  it  is 
proper  and  expedient  to  observe  the  Sabbath.  But 
even  the  leaders  in  religious  thought  differ  on  the 
question  of  the  manner  and  extent  of  such  observance. 
Yet  our  so-called  Sunday  laws  conform  almost  exclu- 
sively to  the  views  of  one  particular  group  of  Christian 
denominations,  entirely  ignoring  those  of  all  others. 
This  fact  is  rendered  all  the  more  significant  when  it 
is  realized  that  these  particular  denominations  happen 
to  be  identical  with  those  which  are  in  our  day  so 
aggressively,  not  to  say  viciously,  insisting  upon  the 
passage  of  other  restrictive  laws,  relating,  for  instance, 


284  Personal  Liberty. 

to  the  use  of  tobacco,  alcoholic  drink,  playing  cards,  the 
censorship  of  the  drama  and  works  of  fiction,  the  utter- 
ances of  the  press,  the  purification  of  art,  the  elimina- 
tion of  dancing,  and  the  prohibition  of  sundry  other 
pastimes  and  pleasures  of  the  people,  to  the  pursuit  of 
which  they  happen  to  be  religiously  or  otherwise 
opposed. 

And  where  is  this  appeal  for  legislative  repression  in 
the  interest  of  one  comparatively  small  but  politically 
and  aggressively  active  group  of  religious  bodies  going 
to  end?  Has  not  the  time  come  when  the  people  of  all 
denominations  should  ask  whether  the  laws  of  this  free 
country,  no  matter  by  whom  inspired,  or  by  what 
majority  enacted,  are  to  decree  what  shall  be  the  moral 
habits,  the  mental  and  physical  recreations,  or  the 
religious  practices  of  all  its  citizens? 

Let  it  be  understood  that  no  criticism  of  Puritan 
ideals  and  no  reflection  upon  Puritan  motives  is  here 
implied.  This  country  is  large  enough  to  give  room  to 
all  creeds  and  ideals,  but  it  is  too  large  to  permit  of  the 
political  ascendancy  of  one  creed  over  all  others,  and 
it  is  as  much  in  the  interest  of  those  of  Puritan  ideals 
that  this  fact  should  be  sternly  insisted  on  as  it  is  in 
the  interest  of  those  of  other  views  and  faiths. 

For  who  knows,  if  this  tendency  towards  denomi- 
national control  of  government  prevails,  how  soon  the 
Puritan  himself  may  have  to  assume  the  role  of  the 
protestant  ? 


Personal  Liberty.  285 

Supposing,  for  instance,  the  Christian  Scientist, 
whose  religious  belief  causes  him  to  condemn  the  use  of 
drugs  and  medicines,  should  one  day,  by  organized 
political  effort  of  the  very  kind  now  put  forth  by 
certain  other  religious  denominations,  attempt  to  force 
his  particular  precepts  upon  the  rest  of  the  citizenship, 
by  procuring  the  passage  of  laws  forbidding  the  sale 
or  use  of  drugs  for  medical  purposes,  would  the 
citizen  of  Puritan  proclivities  sit  idly  by  and  allow 
such  interference  with  his  liberty  of  choice  to  pass 
without  vigorous  protest? 

If  he  did,  he  would  assuredly  not  be  deserving  of 
the  liberty  he  now  enjoys.  And  here  is  a  point,  which 
we  must  emphasize  again  and  again,  because  it  is  im- 
possible to  emphasize  it  too  often,  or  too  strongly :  The 
privilege  of  American  citizenship  not  only  bestows  upon 
him  who  possesses  it  the  right  to  enjoy  the  liberties 
guaranteed  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
but  it  imposes  upon  him  also  the  duty  to  preserve  those 
liberties  and  defend  them  against  all  comers. 

It  is  in  order  to  awaken  every  true-thinking  citizen, 
and  in  particular  those  who  have  more  recently  acquired 
their  rights  of  citizenship,  to  a  realization  of  this  fact 
and  its  important  bearing  upon  the  present  situation, 
that  these  articles  on  personal  liberty  are  written. 
There  is  no  difference  between  these  rights  of  citizen- 
ship, whether  they  have  been  recently  acquired,  or 
whether  they  have  devolved  upon  the  holder  by  the 


286  Personal  Liberty. 

incident  of  birth.  Let  the  naturalized  citizen  bear 
in  mind  that  he  is  not  here  as  a  mere  tolerated  guest 
of  those  whose  citizenship  has  descended  to  them  from 
generations  of  forefathers.  He  came  here  under  the 
implied  assurance  that  the  liberties  guaranteed  to  all 
citizens  by  the  wise  framers  of  the  great  American 
Constitution  were  inviolate,  and  he  is  not  only  just  as 
much  entitled  as  the  descendants  of  earlier  settlers, 
but  is  in  duty  bound,  as  a  man  and  a  citizen,  to  de- 
mand, with  all  the  power  which  his  citizenship  vests  in 
him,  that  these  liberties  be  preserved  to  him.  He  is, 
in  other  words,  a  living  part  of  this  great  Republic, 
not  a  stranger  within  the  gates,  dependent  for  the 
right  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  according  to  his 
customs  and  ideals,  upon  the  grace  or  the  tolerance  of  a 
coterie  of  men  who  claim  the  possession  of  some 
superior  kind  of  citizenship. 

If  this  coterie  of  men  has  organized  itself  into  a 
solid  body,  in  order,  by  the  exercise  of  shrewdly  and 
not  always  scrupulously  manipulated  political  power, 
to  force  all  others,  not  of  their  way  of  thinking,  to 
submit  to  their  views  and  bow  to  their  will,  those  whose 
rights  as  American  citizens  are  thereby  threatened, 
whether  they  hail  from  Russia  or  Italy,  from  Greece 
or  Sweden,  or  from  whatsoever  other  lands  they  may 
come,  must  either  counter  this  dangerous  move  by 
organizing  in  defense  of  those  rights,  or  blame  them- 
selves if  they  are  ultimately  deprived  of  them. 


Personal  Liberty.  287 

II. 

The  most  formidable  foe  of  human  liberty  is  human 
ignorance.  There  is  probably  no  thinking  human 
being,  excepting  perhaps  the  lowest  type  of  savage, 
in  whom,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  desire  for 
freedom  does  not  exist;  nor  have  men  in  reality  ever 
been  lacking  in  the  means  of  realizing  that  desire,  if 
they  so  chose.  In  all  ages,  it  has  been  solely  the  want 
of  knowledge  how  to  utilize  those  means  that  has 
prevented  men  from  obtaining  freedom  and,  when 
obtained,  of  keeping  it. 

Under  the  older  forms  of  government  the  people, 
when  oppressed  beyond  endurance,  have  risen  against 
their  oppressors  and  endeavored,  by  force  of  arms,  to 
secure  the  liberty  that  was  denied  them.  In  most  cases, 
as  history  shows,  these  attempts  failed,  and,  even  when 
they  succeeded,  the  success  was  only  temporary.  And 
why?  For  one  of  two  reasons.  Either  because  the 
masses  were  inferior  to  their  oppressors  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  how  to  use  their  weapons,  or  because  the  very 
weapons  they  had  employed  to  obtain  their  freedom 
were  adroitly  turned  against  them  by  the  identical  men 
they  had  selected  to  lead  them  to  victory. 

We  live  in  different  times,  and,  especially  in  this 
country,  it  is  no  longer  the  spear,  the  sword  and  the 
musket  to  which  the  people  have  to  resort  in  order  to 
protect  their  liberties  from  those  who  would  destroy 
them.  When  the  American  Colonies,  in  their  declara- 


288  Personal  Liberty. 

tion  of  emancipation  from  the  thraldom  of  the  mother 
country  and  its  arbitrary  form  of  government,  pro- 
claimed the  new  gospel  of  individual  freedom  to  the 
world,  every  citizen  of  the  new  republic,  without  dis- 
tinction of  person  or  class,  was  armed  with  the  same 
weapon  of  defense  against  any  attempted  encroachment 
from  within  the  republic  upon  this  newly  acquired 
liberty. 

That  weapon  was  not  the  spear,  the  sword,  or  the 
musket.  That  weapon  was  the  vote. 

The  means,  therefore,  which  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  possess  to-day  to  satisfy  their  desire  for  liberty 
are  no  longer  the  same,  but  a  moment's  reflection  will 
convince  any  intelligent  mind  that  the  conditions  under 
which  these  means  can  be  made  available  have  under- 
gone no  change  whatever.  For,  just  as  in  the  olden 
days  it  was  not  the  lack  of  arms  to  defend  their  liberties, 
but  the  want  of  knowledge  how  to  use  those  arms, 
which  kept  men  in  a  state  of  subjection,  so  the  preser- 
vation of  our  rights  in  this  free  republic  depends,  at 
the  present  day,  not  upon  the  mere  possession  of  the 
privilege  of  franchise,  but  upon  that  which  is  far 
more  important,  namely,  the  knowledge  how  to  exercise 
it. 

Self-evident  as  this  truth  is,  it  is,  like  most  self- 
evident  truths,  more  liable  than  any  other  to  be  lost 
sight  of  in  the  actual  practice  of  daily  life. 

The  Russian  or  the  Finn,  who  came  here  from  the 


Personal  Liberty.  289 

land  of  his  birth  to  escape  from  the  intolerable  despot- 
ism of  autocratic  rule;  or  the  German,  the  Bohemian, 
or  the  Austrian,  who  sought  freedom  on  these  shores 
from  the  exacting  demands  and  the  brutal  arrogance 
of  an  all-pervading  militarism,  did  so,  not  because  his 
hatred  of  his  oppressors  caused  him  to  love  his  old 
home  less,  but  because  it  caused  him  to  love  freedom 
more.  But  if  he  fondly  imagined  that  the  golden  fruit 
of  liberty  hung  here  on  every  tree,  ready  for  all  comers 
to  pluck,  without  effort  and  endeavor,  and  without 
intelligent  application  of  the  means  to  seize  and  keep  it, 
with  which  his  privilege  of  citizenship  equipped  him, 
he  fell  into  the  same  error  that  brought  upon  him  the 
deplorable  condition  of  subjugation  to  a  tyrannical 
power  from  which  he  had  fled. 

Man's  liberty,  in  other  words,  both  in  this  country 
and  elsewhere,  lies  in  his  own  making,  which  means 
that  no  one  can  make  or  unmake  his  liberty,  but,  col- 
lectively speaking,  individual  man  himself.  Human 
ambition  to  exercise  power  over  others  will  in  all 
probability  never  die  out.  Whether  that  ambition 
assume  the  form  of  a  desire  in  certain  men  to  make 
their  fellow-men  mere  servile  contributors  to  their 
own  individual  fortunes,  or  whether  it  express  itself 
in  the  apparently  less  egotistic  tendency  to  impose  a 
particular  rule  of  conduct  or  a  particular  code  of 
morals  upon  the  rest  of  mankind,  the  effect,  wherever 
it  is  exercised  with  success,  is  the  same,  namely,  the 


290  Personal  Liberty. 

supremacy  of  one  man,  or  one  class  of  men,  over 
another  man,  or  another  class  of  men;  in  other  words, 
the  subjection  of  the  independent  will  of  the  many 
to  the  arbitrary  dictation  of  the  few. 

This  has  been,  in  all  times,  the  beginning  of  despotic 
rule;  that  is,  the  manipulation  of  the  governmental 
machine  in  the  interest  of  a  single  individual,  a  single 
family,  or  a  single  class  among  the  general  community. 
Moreover — and  this  is  a  fact  bearing  much  significance 
in  these  days  of  almost  hysterical  reform  tendencies — 
there  is  in  history  no  instance  on  record  of  such  rise  to 
despotic  power  on  the  part  of  any  man,  family,  or 
class,  that  has  not  been  based  on  the  pretense  or  the 
promise  of  bettering  the  conditions  of  the  masses  and 
affording  them  greater  freedom  and  protection  from 
injury  or  injustice. 

Let  us  not  be  misunderstood  when  we  make  this 
assertion.  We  hold  that  there  is  no  nobler  life  than 
that  which  is  devoted  to  the  endeavor  to  improve  the 
lives  of  others,  to  bring  greater  happiness,  greater 
security  and  greater  protection  to  the  many  who  are 
handicapped  by  conditions  of  ignorance  from  within 
and  conditions  of  callous  indifference  from  without. 
We  concede,  too,  and  gratefully,  that  at  no  time  in  the 
history  of  mankind  have  there  been  such  great  strides 
in  this  direction  recorded,  or  so  many  sincere  efforts  to 
this  end  expended,  as  are  in  evidence  on  all  hands 
to-day.  But,  if  it  be  true  that  blessings  sometimes 


Personal  Liberty.  291 

come  in  disguise,  the  same  is  equally  true  of  curses, 
and  to  distinguish  between  the  two,  before  their  effect 
reveals  them  in  their  true  character,  requires  more 
knowledge  and  experience  than  are  given  to  the  ordi- 
nary man,  whose  range  of  mental  vision  does  not 
extend  beyond  the  narrow  sphere  of  his  own  personal 
interests  and  associations. 

If  this  were  not  true,  the  whole  social  history  of  man, 
as  we  know  it  to-day,  would  have  to  be  rewritten.  If 
this  were  not  true,  men  would  never  have  had  cause  in 
the  past  to  overthrow  their  tyrants  and  oppressors, 
because  they  would  never  have  given  into  the  hands  of 
others  the  power  to  tyrannize  and  oppress  them.  The 
despots  of  old  did  not  make  themselves.  They  were 
made  by  the  people,  who  were  first  deceived  by  the 
promise  of  blessings  to  come,  and  then  resigned  them- 
selves, as  best  they  could,  to  bear  the  curse  which  came 
in  their  stead. 

There  is  little  difference,  in  this  regard,  between  our 
times  and  those  that  belong  to  past  history,  excepting, 
as  we  have  pointed  out,  that  a  new  weapon  has  been 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  people  wherewith  to  protect 
themselves  against  the  schemes,  the  oppressions,  or  the 
exactions  of  those  who  are  ever  aiming  to  deprive  them 
of  their  natural  rights  and  privileges.  Yet,  if  the  peo- 
ple give  as  little  heed  to  the  necessity  of  training  and 
disciplining  themselves  in  the  knowledge  of  how  and  in 
what  direction  to  use  this  new  defensive  weapon  as 


292  Personal  Liberty. 

they  did  in  the  case  of  the  older  weapon,  it  will  be  as 
surely  directed  against  them  as  formerly  the  spear,  the 
sword  and  the  musket  became  in  their  own  hands  the 
means  of  their  subjugation  by  their  craftier  and  more 
experienced  enemies. 

Experience  has  shown  that  a  well-instructed  army 
can  subdue  a  force  of  ten  times  its  number,  if  that 
force  is  scattered  and  uninformed  and  undisciplined, 
though  man  for  man  each  individual  may  be  equal  to 
the  other  in  energy  and  physical  strength.  Likewise, 
a  small  force  of  well-disciplined  and  determined  citi- 
zens can  outwit  and  outmaneuver  an  infinitely  larger 
number  of  citizens  at  the  polls,  if  the  latter  lack  the 
knowledge,  the  training  and  the  power  of  united  effort, 
which  are  as  necessary  to  the  effective  exercise  of  the 
voting  franchise  as  they  were  necessary  to  the  effective 
employment  of  the  less  peaceful  weapons  in  vogue 
in  the  days  of  yore. 

Few  men  probably  require  to  be  reminded  of  the 
classic  saying  that  eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of 
liberty.  Yet  how  many  of  those  who  wisely  quote  this 
saying  know  its  real  meaning,  or  its  real  application  to 
our  present-day  conditions?  How  many,  indeed,  know 
in  which  direction  to  practice  that  vigilance?  How 
many,  if  they  ever  gave  the  subject  real  thought,  imag- 
ine that  it  merely  applies  to  our  attitude  towards  the 
foes  who  may  threaten  our  liberties  from  without,  for- 
getting the  far  more  dangerous  enemies  who  are  ever 


Personal  Liberty.  293 

menacing  those  liberties  from  within?  We  maintain 
our  army  and  our  naval  forces,  backed  by  the  strength 
of  the  entire  nation,  to  safeguard  us  against  the 
former.  Are  we  equally  well  equipped  to  safeguard 
ourselves  against  the  latter?  Do  we  take  the  same 
cautious  measure  of  the  strength  of  these  foes  from 
within  that  we  do  of  the  strength  of  our  foes  from 
without?  Do  we  maintain  our  defenses  against  the 
enemy  of  our  liberties  at  home  with  the  same  care  and 
solicitude  that  we  bestow  upon  our  defenses  against 
the  enemy  of  our  liberties  abroad? 

In  the  olden  days  the  people  were  duped  into  fight- 
ing against  their  own  liberties  because  they  knew  no 
better.  In  our  day  the  people  are  duped  into  voting 
against  their  liberties  because  they  know  no  better. 
And  they  know  no  better,  not  because  the  necessary 
knowledge  is  beyond  their  reach,  but  because  the 
enjoyment  of  the  very  liberties  their  forefathers  pro- 
cured for  them  has  lulled  them  into  a  state  of  fancied 
security  against  any  possible  loss  or  curtailment  of 
those  liberties.  Yet  they  are  encroached  upon  every 
day,  not  by  the  assault  of  armed  forces,  but  by 
the  far  more  insidious  process  of  restrictive  or  coercive 
legislation,  fostered  by  well-organized  cliques  of  men 
who  are  constitutionally  opposed  to  all  freedom  of  will 
and  liberty  of  conscience,  and  who,  like  the  tyrants  of 
old,  enlist  the  support  of  the  people  in  favor  of  such 
legislation  by  specious  promises  of  greater  blessings 
and  more  ideal  liberties  to  come. 


294  Personal  Liberty. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  prefaced  this  article 
with  the  statement  that  the  greatest  foe  of  human  lib- 
erty is  human  ignorance.  Every  individual  American 
citizen  contributes  to  the  making  or  unmaking  of  his 
liberties  by  his  vote,  and  if  he  casts  that  vote  in  ignor- 
ance of  the  true  intentions  of  the  man  in  whose  hands 
he  thereby  places  his  destiny,  or  in  ignorance  of  the 
true  purposes  of  the  measures  he  thereby  converts  into 
laws,  he  is  neglecting  the  primary  and  most  elementary 
duty  which  devolves  upon  him  with  his  privilege  of 
franchise. 

There  was  never  a  time  when  men  needed  to  be 
taught  what  their  liberties  are.  Every  man  knows  this 
by  intuition.  What  every  man  does  not  know  is  how 
easily  those  liberties  can  be  taken  away  from  him  by 
his  own  unconscious  connivance,  and  he  will  never 
obtain  that  knowledge  until  he  awakes  to  the  necessity 
of  combining  with  his  fellows  in  defense  of  his  liberties, 
as  those  who  begrudge  him  those  liberties  combine 
together  to  deprive  him  of  them. 

III. 

If  it  is  true  that  of  all  the  foes  of  human  liberty  the 
most  formidable  is  human  ignorance,  it  is  equally  true 
that  the  greatest  of  all  dangers  which  beset  that  liberty 
is  the  ignorant  folly  of  those  who  abuse  it. 

When,  in  1898,  the  United  States  incorporated  in 
its  possessions  the  Philippine  Islands,  the  full  measure 


Personal  Liberty.  295 

of  political  and  personal  freedom  enjoyed  by  the 
citizens  of  our  great  republic  was  not  extended  to  the 
people  of  those  islands,  and  wisely  so.  The  safe  exer- 
cise of  liberty  is  conditioned  upon  the  power  of  self- 
restraint  possessed  by  the  individual  who  enjoys  liberty. 
Self-restraint  is  the  product  of  education,  and  can  no 
more  be  imparted  to  man  by  law  than  can  any  other 
virtue.  Savage,  or  semi-savage  peoples  are  notoriously 
devoid  of  self-restraint,  hence  their  incapacity  for 
self-government. 

It  is,  in  brief,  upon  the  measure  of  self-control  of 
which  any  aggregation  of  individuals  shows  itself 
capable  that  their  right  to  freedom  is  founded.  So 
well,  indeed,  is  this  principle  established  that  even  the 
most  liberal  of  modern  governments  provide  for  the 
temporary  suspension  of  the  most  cherished  rights  of 
the  people  under  circumstances  of  extraordinary  neces- 
sity, such  as  occur  in  times  of  extreme  popular  excite- 
ment, when  the  public  mind  is  distracted  by  some  over- 
whelming national  disaster,  or  when  the  public  temper 
is  carried  from  its  normal  moorings  by  one  of  those 
waves  of  social,  political  or  religious  hysteria  which 
from  time  to  time  sweep  over  the  most  civilized  of 
nations.  It  is  on  these  occasions  always  the  incontinence 
of  the  individual,  however  temporary  the  nature  of 
that  incontinence  may  be,  which  gives  the  primary 
impetus  to  the  public  abandonment  of  reason  and  self- 
control,  and  which  brings  upon  the  people  as  a  whole 
the  inevitable  loss  of  their  cherished  privileges. 


296  Personal  Liberty. 

It  is,  therefore,  upon  the  actions  of  the  individual 
that,  in  the  first  instance,  the  rights  and  the  liberties 
of  .the  whole  community  depend,  and  it  is  for  this 
reason  of  vital  importance  to  the  community  as  a 
whole  that  it  should  exercise  such  influence  upon  its 
individual  members  as  may  effectively  prevent  them 
from  endangering  the  liberties  of  all. 

That  the  community  is  capable  of  exercising  that 
influence,  and,  indeed,  that  it  has  in  the  past  exercised 
such  influence  with  more  effect  than  any  laws  or  stat- 
utes are  capable  of  producing,  of  this  fact  history 
records  many  striking  instances.  Religious  intolerance, 
for  example,  which  for  centuries  was  the  contributory 
cause  of  many  of  the  bloodiest  wars  that  decimated  the 
peoples  of  the  civilized  world,  has  been  practically 
eliminated  as  a  factor  in  the  making  and  unmaking 
of  great  and  powerful  nations,  not  by  the  dictation  of 
law  or  government,  but  by  the  steady  advance  of  public 
opinion  towards  recognition  of  the  rights  of  individual 
conscience.  Again,  the  various  forms  of  licentiousness 
in  men,  which  society  in  less  cultured  times  either 
tacitly  endured  or  actually  smiled  upon  with  more  or 
less  indulgence,  have  been  reduced  in  our  age,  not  by 
the  stringency  of  laws  enacted  to  curb  them,  but  by 
the  irresistible  force  of  educated  public  sentiment,  and 
many  other  excesses,  that  were  once  universally  toler- 
ated, notably  that  of  drunkenness,  which,  not  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  was  actually  considered  an  indispen- 
sable mark  of  true  gentility,  are  to-day,  if  indulged 


Personal  Liberty.  297 

in  at  all,  committed  by  stealth  or  under  cover  of 
secrecy,  because  society  as  a  whole  has  learned  to 
frown  upon  them  and  to  ostracise  those  who  succumb 
to  them. 

We  are  not  implying  by  all  this  that  religious  intol- 
erance no  longer  dominates  the  minds  of  individual 
men,  or  that  individual  men  are  no  longer  subject  to 
indulgence  in  licentious  practices,  drunkenness,  or 
other  similar  excesses.  The  point  is  that  it  is  the  com- 
munity alone,  wielding  that  keenest  of  all  influences, 
public  opinion,  which  has  always  determined  and  always 
must  determine  to  what  extent  the  individual  shall 
transgress  the  bounds  of  decency  with  impunity, 
because  it  is  in  society  at  large  that  the  self-restraint 
of  the  individual  is  rooted,  and,  if  the  soil  in  which 
the  plant  grows  becomes  dry  and  barren,  the  plant 
itself  must  wither  for  want  of  sustenance.  In  fact, 
whenever  society  has  neglected  to  exercise  this  control 
over  its  members,  despotic  law  has  invariably  inter- 
vened and  essayed  the  task,  with  all  the  inevitable 
consequences  that  follow  the  loss  of  a  people's  liberties. 

As  an  instance  in  point,  perhaps  nothing  more  strik- 
ing could  be  cited  than  the  period  of  military  despotism 
which  followed  the  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution. 

Now,  if  all  this  applies  to  the  liberty  of  the  people 
in  general,  it  applies  with  equal  force  to  the  liberties  of 
the  individual  in  particular.  A  community  is  but  an 
individual  many  times  multiplied,  and  though  public 


298  Personal  Liberty. 

opinion  is  regarded  as  the  consensus  of  the  sentiment 
of  those  who  constitute  the  body  public,  it  is  through 
the  individual  constituent  of  that  body  public  alone 
that  the  force  of  public  opinion  can  make  itself 
effectively  felt.  In  other  words,  public  opinion  itself 
is  of  no  force  or  avail,  unless  the  individual  who  con- 
tributes towards  its  formulation  gives  expression  to  it 
by  his  own  actions  and  by  the  example  of  his  own 
daily  life.  To  join  in  condemning  in  public  what  we 
ourselves  practice  in  private,  or  what  we  condone 
privately  in  others  who  indulge  in  its  practice,  is  to 
reduce  public  opinion  to  a  meaningless  farce.  Pretense 
of  virtue  is  the  most  pernicious  of  all  vices,  and  unfor- 
tunately of  all  vices  the  most  prevalent. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  abuses  his  own 
liberty  commits  no  greater  offense  against  the  liberty 
of  all  men  than  he  who,  seeing  him  do  so,  fails  to 
frown  upon  the  abuse  and  condemn  the  abuser.  To 
treat  the  excesses  of  others  as  if  they  were  mere 
amiable  frailties,  rather  to  be  laughed  at  as  amusing 
spectacles  than  treated  with  contempt  as  evidences 
of  human  abasement,  means  nothing  less  than  to  share, 
morally  at  least,  in  the  delinquency  of  the.  offenders, 
and  the  step  from  the  moral  to  the  physical  participa- 
tion in  an  offense  is  a  very  short  one.  Men  may  differ 
as  to  the  exact  line  of  demarcation  between  the  legiti- 
mate use  of  our  liberty  and  its  abuse,  but  there  is  a 
certain  point  at  which  all  men  agree  that  dangerous 


Personal  Liberty.  299 

excess  begins,  and  it  is  at  that  point,  in  the  interest 
of  human  liberty  in  general,  that  all  men  should  draw 
the  line  of  approval. 

We  would  not  lay  such  emphasis  upon  this  obvious 
fact  were  it  not  for  the  circumstance  that  some  extrem- 
ists in  the  defense  of  personal  liberty  "hold  that  this 
liberty,  being  inherent  in  the  individual  himself,  is 
entirely  beyond  the  control  of  the  community  at  large, 
and  that,  because  its  abuse  by  the  individual  is  fraught 
with  evil  consequences  to  him  alone,  such  abuse  is  his 
concern  and  no  one  else's. 

We  hold  that  there  are  two  fundamental  fallacies  in 
this  position.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  in  the  power  of 
the  community,  within  certain  limits,  to  control  the 
exercise  of  the  personal  liberty  of  the  individual,  not 
by  statutory  laws,  of  course,  but,  as  we  have  endeavored 
to  show,  by  the  far  more  powerful  influence  of  really 
active  public  opinion.  In  the  second  place,  the  abuse 
of  his  liberty  by  the  individual  is  fraught  with  evil 
consequences,  not  only  to  the  individual  himself,  but 
to  the  community  at  large,  inasmuch  as  that  abuse,  if 
indulged  in  too  generally,  or  condoned  by  too  many, 
becomes  a  danger  to  the  liberty  of  all.  Or,  does  anyone 
doubt  that  freedom  of  speech  may  be  endangered  by 
those  who  abuse  that  freedom,  or  the  liberty  of  the 
press  placed  in  jeopardy  by  those  who  carry  that  lib- 
erty to  unreasonable  extremes  ?  Is  not  the  free  practice 
of  the  arts  frequently  imperiled  by  unscrupulous  indi- 


300  Personal  Liberty. 

viduals,  who  prostitute  them  to  impure  or  immoral 
uses?  And  are  not  many  innocent  pleasures  and 
pursuits  of  the  people  constantly  subjected  to  threat- 
ened or  actual  restriction  or  curtailment,  by  the  actions 
of  some  men  who  indulge  in  them  unwisely,  or  with 
manifestly  vicious  purpose? 

We  are  confronted  to-day,  indeed,  with  a  widely 
supported  movement  to  deprive,  by  governmental 
decree,  over  ninety  million  people,  the  greater  part  of 
whom  are  admittedly  sane,  and  sober,  and  self -con- 
trolled, of  the  privilege  of  obtaining  certain  beverages, 
the  use  of  which  has  not  only  been  universal  throughout 
the  Christian  world,  but  was  expressly  sanctioned  on 
festival  occasions,  and  even  enjoined  upon  mankind 
in  solemn  celebration  of  His  divine  sacrifice,  by  Him 
whom  it  worships  as  its  Savior.  And  are  not  the 
abuses  of  that  privilege  and  the  conditions  under 
which  it  is  exercised  by  certain  individuals  the  only 
plausible  pretext  upon  which  the  demand  for  its 
general  abrogation  is  based? 

To  oppose  this  or  any  other  similar  movement  upon 
the  bare  plea  that  it  threatens  the  liberty  of  the  indi- 
vidual, and  is  calculated  to  substitute  a  worse  evil 
for  that  which  it  aims  to  destroy,  is  well  enough,  so 
far  as  it  goes.  But  it  is  far  from  meeting  the  whole 
case,  nor  does  it  meet  the  really  vital  point  in  the 
case.  The  enemy  that  is  besieging  the  fortress  of  our 
liberties  would  be  comparatively  negligible  but  for  his 


Personal  Liberty.  301 

ally  within  the  fortress  itself,  who  is  forever  battering 
down  the  gates  from  the  inside,  and  thus  opening  a 
breach  through  which  the  enemy  can  enter  and  capture 
the  citadel. 

It  is  this  ally  of  the  enemy  within  the  fortress  against 
whom  we  should  primarily  level  our  guns,  namely,  the 
abuser  of  our  liberty,  and  the  creator  of  the  undesir- 
able conditions  under  which  it  is  sometimes  exercised, 
and  which  offend  the  nostrils  of  all  decent  men.  We 
should  pursue  him  relentlessly,  as  well  as  those  who 
uphold  him,  not  only  collectively  but  individually, 
whether  he  be  our  friend  and  brother,  or  a  mere 
stranger  or  passing  acquaintance.  For  it  is  largely  by 
reason  of  our  indifference  that  he  thrives  and  multiplies, 
bringing  misery  upon  himself,  and  shame  and  reproach 
upon  us,  who  suffer  him  in  our  midst  without  objection 
and  protest. 

It  was  pointed  out  in  a  recent  article  that  many 
men  do  not  know  how  easily  their  liberties  may  be 
taken  away  from  them  by  their  own  unconscious  con- 
nivance, and  that  every  man  who  loves  his  liberty 
should  combine  with  his  fellows  in  acquiring  that 
knowledge,  and  with  it  the  means  of  defending  his 
liberty  against  the  attacks  of  those  who  would  deprive 
him  of  it.  We  can  only  reiterate  this  advice,  but,  in 
reiterating  it,  let  us  couple  with  it  this  earnest  admon- 
ition: It  is  not  only  those  that  attack  our  liberty,  but 
those  that  disgrace  it,  against  whom  it  is  imperative 


302  Personal  Liberty. 

for  us  to  combine,  because  to  conquer  the  enemy  outside 
the  camp,  and  neglect  to  subdue  the  enemy  within  it, 
is  but  a  half-won  battle,  unprofitable  to  them  that 
win  it,  and  an  incentive  to  renewed  attack  on  the  part 
of  those  who  lose  it. 

Every  citizen  of  this  country,  whether  he  be  indige- 
nous or  foreign-born,  is  entitled  to  the  use  of  the 
liberties  he  has  inherited  from  his  forefathers,  but  not 
to  their  abuse.  If  he  insist  upon  the  latter,  he  may 
lose  the  former,  for  the  right  to  suppress  the  abuse  of 
liberty  is  as  inalienable  as  the  right  to  use  it. 

IV. 

Men  first  began  to  acquire  the  blessings  of  liberty 
when  they  began  to  think  for  themselves.  The  exercise 
of  individual  thought,  in  fact,  is  the  very  basis  upon 
which  liberty  is  founded.  No  better  proof  of  this  fact 
exists  than  that  which  has  been  afforded  by  the  enemies 
of  liberty  in  all  ages,  for  their  chief  point  of  attack 
has  invariably  been  the  right  of  men  to  do  their  own 
thinking. 

These  enemies  of  liberty  are  ignorant,  or  profess 
ignorance,  of  the  fact  that  man  has  risen  to  his  present 
status  by  the  exercise  of  the  power,  largely  developed 
in  him  by  the  teachings  of  his  religion,  of  mastering 
himself,  just  as  the  child  develops  into  the  adult  when 
he  learns  to  do  of  his  own  free  will  those  things  which 
in  his  infant  stage  he  could  only  be  induced  to  do  by 


Personal  Liberty.  303 

the  will  of  a  superior  mind.  Some  men  never  outgrow 
their  childhood,  and  require  the  guidance  and  restraint 
of  others  throughout  their  lives.  The  law  treats  these 
men  as  the  schoolmaster  treats  his  refractory  children, 
by  restraining  and  punishing  them,  because  they  have 
no  mind  to  cultivate,  and  no  will  to  develop.  To  such, 
the  principles  of  virtue  and  morality  are  merely  the 
commands  of  a  superior  power,  which  they  obey 
because  they  are  compelled  to  do  so,  not  because  they 
have  learned  to  realize  the  true  nature  of  those  prin- 
ciples, and  to  obey  them  for  their  own  sake.  Such 
compulsory  obedience,  of  course,  is  neither  morally 
uplifting,  nor  productive  of  morality. 

The  merest  beginner  in  ethics  knows  that  the  virtue 
which  is  merely  the  result  of  necessity  is  no  virtue  at  all, 
and  that  the  very  essence  of  what  we  call  the  perform- 
ance of  duty  is  the  action  of  our  free  will  in  doing 
so.  The  slave,  who  accomplishes  his  allotted  labor 
under  threat  of  the  lash,  performs  a  task,  but  not  a 
duty;  and  such  labor,  as  we  know,  is  not,  like  other 
labor,  elevating,  but  degrading.  And  so  it  is  with 
him  who  only  keeps  upon  the  path  of  virtue  because  he 
is  held  there  by  some  controlling  power  outside  of 
himself.  He,  too,  is  performing  a  task,  not  a  duty; 
in  other  words,  he  is  accomplishing  labor  under  the 
lash,  and  whatever  the  nature  of  such  labor  may  be, 
whether  of  the  highest  or  the  lowest  type,  he  who 
performs  it  is  reduced  to  the  condition  of  the  slave, 


304  Personal  Liberty. 

with  all  the  degrading  influences  which  that  condition 
implies. 

The  whole  history  of  education — and  the  history  of 
education  means  the  history  of  civilization — is  the 
record  of  man's  collective  endeavor  to  rise  above  this 
condition  of  mental  dependence  (in  other  words,  man's 
gradual  advance  to  the  understanding  that  necessity 
is  not  a  virtue,  but  that  virtue  is  a  necessity;  that  the 
ultimate  goal  of  all  government  is  self-government, 
and  the  ultimate  aim  of  all  teaching  is  the  cultivation 
of  the  faculty  of  self -education).  What,  indeed,  is 
the  true  meaning  of  that  greatest  of  all  sayings  that 
the  best  governed  nation  is  that  which  is  least  gov- 
erned? It  means  no  more  and  no  less  than  that  the 
best  governed  people  are  those  whose  laws  have  best 
equipped  them  to  govern  themselves,  and  since  educa- 
tion is  the  basis  of  government,  the  least  governed 
people  must  of  necessity  be  those  who  have  best 
learned  how  to  teach  themselves. 

Liberty,  then,  does  not  mean,  as  its  foes  love  to 
pretend,  mere  license,  in  its  more  specific  sense  of 
exemption  from  control,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  means, 
in  the  highest  and  most  literal  sense  of  the  term,  self- 
government,  which  is  the  exercise  of  that  faculty  of 
individual  responsibility  the  development  of  which  in 
the  human  being  is  the  primary  aim  and  purpose  of  all 
true  education. 

The  savage,  to  whom  many  of  those  who  favor  the 


Personal  Liberty.  305 

restriction  of  our  liberties  ironically  point  as  living 
in  a  state  of  complete  liberty,  really  enjoys  no  liberty 
at  all,  for  he  is  the  prey,  not  only  of  every  appetite  or 
emotion  that  may  seize  him,  but  the  humble  slave  of 
everyone  of  his  fellows  whose  bodily  strength,  or 
whose  craftiness,  exceeds  his  own.  He  is  utterly 
devoid  of  the  sense  of  individual  responsibility,  and 
some  of  his  devices  to  escape  the  consequences  of  the 
similar  lack  of  responsibility  on  the  part  of  his  fellowr- 
man  have  survived  in  our  own  race,  and  are  recogniz- 
able in  some  of  the  polite  customs  of  the  present  day. 
The  origin  of  our  handshake,  for  instance,  is  said  to 
be  traceable  to  the  age  when  men  so  distrusted  each 
other  that,  on  meeting,  each  would  hold  the  other's 
hands  in  his  own  in  order  to  be  secure  from  sudden 
treacherous  attack. 

Treachery,  unhappily,  is  still  not  entirely  unknown 
in  our  age,  but,  with  all  our  modern  educational  ten- 
dencies backwards  towards  the  dark  ages  from  which 
our  race  has  emerged,  we  have  as  yet  not  decreed  by 
law  that  men  shall  revive  this  ancient  custom  of  savage 
days,  merely  because  there  are  still  some  among  us  who 
may  treacherously  assault  their  neighbors  unless  the 
latter  thus  protect  themselves.  Yet,  are  we  so  very 
far  from  such  a  return  to  barbarous  precautions  in 
these  enlightened  days,  when  apparently  the  main 
presumption  from  which  our  laws  proceed  is  that 
individual  man  is  totally  devoid  of  self-responsibility, 


306  Personal  Liberty. 

and  that  the  exercise  of  his  free  will  in  all  his  actions 
must  be  restricted  to  an  absolute  minimum? 

Take,  for  instance,  the  recent  order  issued  by  the 
Secretary  of  our  Navy  forbidding  the  officers  to  in- 
dulge in  alcoholic  beverages  in  any  form  at  their 
messes,  lest,  as  the  Secretary  has  explained,  some 
officer  may  imbibe  too  freely  and  endanger  the  compli- 
cated machinery  of  the  modern  battleship  in  his  charge. 
There  is  theoretically,  of  course,  no  doubt  about  the 
possibility  of  such  an  eventuality,  and,  theoretically,  the 
order  may  one  day  save  an  American  battleship  from 
damage  or  destruction.  But,  then,  it  is  not  only  theo- 
retically but  practically  just  as  possible  that  some 
human  lives  might  be  saved  if  the  law  provided  that 
henceforth  all  conversations  between  individuals  must 
be  conducted  whilst  each  of  those  conversing  held  the 
other's  hands,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  age  when 
all  men  went  in  bodily  fear  of  each  other.  But  would 
not  the  law,  by  thus  placing  all  men  on  the  same  plane 
as  the  few  who  are  devoid  of  the  sense  of  honor  and 
good  faith,  quickly  reduce  mankind  generally  to  the 
mental  status  of  the  savage,  to  whom  treachery  is  a 
mere  incident  of  ordinary  human  life? 

What  moral  effect  the  reduction  of  the  highly 
trained  officers  of  our  navy  to  the  status  of  potential 
drunkards  will  have,  I  would  be  loth  to  say.  That  it 
will  not  promote  the  development  of  the  faculty  of 
individual  self-reliance,  which  has  for  ages  been  the 


Personal  Liberty.  307 

end  and  aim  of  education,  is  fairly  certain ;  for  a  faculty 
that  has  nothing  to  practice  upon  must  soon  decay 
and  die.  Possibly,  as  has  been  said,  it  may  one  day 
save  an  American  battleship  from  accidental  damage 
or  destruction.  But  possibly,  also,  it  may  result  in 
there  soon  being  no  more  battleships  with  complicated 
machinery  to  destroy,  since  the  development  of  these 
modern  wonders  has  been  largely  due  to  man's  emanci- 
pation from  that  very  condition  of  mental  and  moral 
dependence  to  which  such  administrative  acts  as  we 
have  discussed  are  manifestly  calculated  to  return  him. 
There  seems,  moreover,  to  be  a  strange  contradiction 
in  the  position  taken  by  our  worthy  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  that  the  more  important  the  duty  imposed  upon 
an  individual,  the  less  trust  should  be  placed  in  his 
ability  to  res.pond  to  it.  Carried  to  its  logical  conclu- 
sion, would  not  this  theory  render  it  more  imperative 
still  to  devise  measures  to  prevent  the  head  of  the 
government  himself,  and  his  immediate  advisors,  from 
having  access  to  alcoholic  stimulants,  since  upon  their 
sense  of  responsibility  rests  the  destiny  of  the  entire 
people,  and  the  possible  succumbing  on  the  part  of  one 
or  the  other  of  them  to  a  momentary  temptation  to 
indulge  too  freely  might  wreck,  not  only  a  mere  battle- 
ship, but  a  whole  nation?  Up  to  the  present,  we  have 
been,  perhaps  blindly,  content  to  take  this  fearful 
chance.  But  with  the  new  doctrine  before  us  that, 
because  some  men  are  admittedly  irresponsible,  the 


308  Personal  Liberty. 

only  safety  to  mankind  is  to  assume  that  all  men  are 
lacking  in  responsibility,  how  can  we  continue  to  rest 
at  ease  with  the  hitherto  unsuspected  knowledge  of 
such  shocking  dangers  confronting  us? 

And  how  about  our  general  plan  of  educating  our 
young  ones?  Will  that,  too,  not  require  radical 
revision  to  conform  with  the  new  doctrine?  One  of 
the  most  successful  modern  methods  of  training  chil- 
dren in  the  exercise  of  self-responsibility  is  what  is 
known  as  placing  them  "on  their  honor."  Nay,  this 
system  has  even  been  extended  to  the  treatment  of 
convicted  criminals,  and  found  to  work  with  fair 
success.  But,  strangest  of  all,  our  government  is 
to-day  straining  every  educational  effort  to  bring 
the  savage  or  semi-savage  race  of  the  Philippines  up 
to  the  level  of  our  American  capacity  for  self-govern- 
ment. And  how?  By  training  them  in  the  exercise  of 
self-responsibility.  Isn't  this  the  height  of  inconsis- 
tency? While  every  effort  is  being  exerted  in  the 
Philippines  to  raise  the  savage  inhabitant  of  those 
islands  to  the  level  of  the  civilized  American  by 
developing  his  sense  of  responsibility,  the  same  efforts 
are  being  simultaneously  put  forth  at  home  to  reduce 
the  civilized  American  to  the  level  of  the  Philippine 
by  depriving  him  of  the  opportunity  of  exercising  his 
sense  of  responsibility. 

We  hear  the  inevitable  retort  of  the  anti-liberal  that 
there  is  no  necessity  to  train  the  Philippine  to  resist 


Personal  Liberty.  309 

the  temptation  of  drink,  because  indulgence  in  drink 
is  dangerous  and  should  therefore  be  rendered  impos- 
sible both  to  the  Philippine  and  the  American.  The 
answer  is  obviously  that  it  is  not  in  man's  hands  to 
render  indulgence  in  drink  impossible,  because,  as 
long  as  Nature  herself  puts  drink  within  the  reach  of 
man,  without  any  assistance  on  the  part  of  those  who 
manufacture  liquor,  men  will  have  to  reckon  with  its 
temptations,  and  should  be  therefore  fortified  in  resist- 
ing them. 

But  the  real  fact  is  that  the  addiction  of  some  men 
to  over-indulgence  in  drink,  because  it  affords  the 
most  convenient  and  most  appealing  example  of  man's 
liability  to  deviate  from  the  path  of  moderation  and 
thus  forfeit  his  powers  of  self-control,  is  used  as 
alleged  evidence  that  all  pleasures,  pastimes,  appetites, 
and  customs,  the  proper  indulgence  in  which  depends 
upon  man's  power  of  self-control,  should  be  forbidden 
to  all  men,  thus  reducing  every  human  being  to  the 
level  of  those  few  who  have  no  power  of  self-control  to 
exercise. 

In  some  of  our  States,  for  instance,  the  use  of  play- 
ing cards,  dominoes,  checkers,  etc.,  is  made  a  penal 
offense,  because  some  men  have  used  them  unlawfully 
for  gambling  purposes.  Dancing  has  been  forbidden  in 
some  communities,  because,  though  millions  dance 
with  members  of  the  opposite  sex  without  any  impure 
thought,  there  are  some  few  who  do  not.  Instances  of 


310  Personal  Liberty. 

this  kind  can  be  multiplied  ad  libitum,  and  the  most 
significant  feature  about  them  all  is  that  the  tendency 
to  thus  reduce  all  mankind  to  the  status  of  the  weakest 
and  most  defective  of  humans  emanates  exclusively 
from  a  certain  well-defined  group  of  religious  denomi- 
nations, whose  estimate  of  man's  integrity  and  dignity 
is  the  very  lowest  imaginable,  and  whose  stealthily- 
gained  political  power  in  this  free  country  is  one  of  the 
greatest  menaces  that  confront  the  American  people 
to-day. 

The  cultivation  of  the  drama,  the  practice  of  the  fine 
arts,  the  pursuit  of  scientific  truth,  the  right  of  free 
intellectual  development,  the  allurements  of  sport,  and 
the  enjoyment  of  every  worldly  form  of  mental  and 
bodily  recreation  are  all  anathema  to  these  new  factors 
in  American  politics,  whose  abnormal  views,  not  only  of 
this  life,  but  of  the  life  to  come,  are  repellent  to  the 
normally  constituted  millions  upon  whom  they  are 
endeavoring  to  force  them  by  law.  To  them  Satan 
is  the  God  that  smiles,  whilst  their  conception  of  the 
Almighty  is  that  of  the  God  who  frowns.  Hence, 
they  hate  pleasure,  merely  because  it  is  pleasure,  not 
because  some  men  indulge  in  pleasure  unwisely.  They 
belong,  in  short,  to  that  species  of  man  of  whom 
Macaulay  so  aptly  said  that  it  condemned  bear- 
baiting  not  because  it  gave  pain  to  the  bear,  but 
because  it  gave  enjoyment  to  the  spectator. 

And  they  are  becoming  increasingly  dangerous  to 


Personal  Liberty.  311 

the  community,  not  on  account  of  their  numbers,  but 
on  account  of  their  capacity  for  organization,  which  is 
due  just  to  that  total  renunciation  of  individual  mental 
freedom  in  themselves  which  they  aim  to  force  upon 
all  others.  By  virtue  of  this  capacity  for  organization, 
and  by  the  operation  of  a  system  of  terrorism  as  cruel 
and  relentless  as  it  is  immoral,  they  have  succeeded 
in  recent  years  in  obtaining  practical  control  of  a 
majority  of  our  legislative  bodies.  They  respect  no 
opinion,  no  creed,  no  conscience,  except  their  own, 
and  they  threaten  with  destruction,  not  only  politically, 
but  socially,  commercially,  and  professionally,  all  who 
impede  their  path,  or  refuse  to  do  their  bidding. 
Hence,  men  in  public  life  have  come  to  fear  them  more 
than  the  head-hunter  is  feared  in  the  Philippines,  or 
the  witch-finder  is  feared  among  the  African  tribes; 
indeed,  such  is  the  dread  of  their  displeasure  which  has 
spread  among  the  people  at  large  that  men  will  rather 
hypocritically  pretend  to  applaud  their  aims  and 
their  methods  than  risk  incurring  their  vengeance  by 
denouncing  them. 

Thus  they  are  slowly  but  surely  undermining  the 
very  foundation  upon  which  our  liberties  rest,  namely, 
the  free  development  of  individual  human  will  and  the 
free  expression  of  individual  human  thought.  No 
matter  that,  in  the  minds  of  some  men,  the  question 
whether  mankind  shall  or  shall  not  pursue  certain 
habits  and  customs,  or  indulge  in  certain  pleasures  and 


312  Personal  Liberty. 

pastimes,  may  transcend  in  importance  all  other  human 
questions,  it  pales  into  insignificance  before  the  fact, 
which  is  undoubted,  that  the  vindictiveness  with  which 
the  negative  side  of  that  question  is  being  forced  upon 
the  community  by  those  who  champion  it  has  resulted 
in  hundreds  of  thousands  of  citizens  of  a  free  nation 
fearing  to  give  unreserved  expression  to  their  thoughts 
and  opinions,  and  this  involves  a  far  more  serious 
danger  to  a  people  than  all  the  temptations  which 
Nature  has  placed  in  their  path,  and  from  which  their 
would-be  benefactors  would  save  them. 

It  is  this  fact,  to  a  realization  of  which  the  people 
of  this  country  should  awaken,  and  awaken  fast.  It 
is  true  that  a  nation  which  yields  itself  up  to  habits 
of  any  kind  of  extravagant  self-indulgence  is  liable  to 
deteriorate.  But  a  nation,  many  of  whose  citizens  no 
longer  dare  to  think  for  themselves,  or  to  trust  m  their 
power  of  self-determination,  may  one  day  find  itself 
without  anything  much  left  to  deteriorate  from. 

Liberty  comes  before  virtue,  not  because  liberty  out- 
ranks virtue,  but  because  it  is  its  very  fountain  and 
origin,  and  no  virtue  is  conceivable  without  it. 

V. 

If  these  articles  had  no  other  purpose  than  the 
purely  academic  discussion  of  the  principles  of  liberty 
they  could  claim  but  the  questionable  merit  of  ex- 
pounding what  has  been  far  more  ably  expounded 


Personal  Liberty.  313 

before,  for  the  greatest  thinkers  the  world  has  ever 
produced  have  dealt  with  those  principles  and  estab- 
lished their  truth  for  all  time.  Indeed,  if  the  mere 
recognition  of  those  principles  by  a  vast  majority 
of  mankind  were  a  guarantee  of  the  inviolability  of 
our  liberties,  we  could  afford  to  snap  our  fingers  at 
those  who  are  ever  seeking  to  deprive  us  of  them.  But 
majorities,  strange  to  say,  have  never  been  the  ruling 
classes  among  men,  even  in  this  greatest  of  modern 
democracies,  and  they  rarely  realize  the  necessity  of 
organizing  in  active  defense  of  the  rights  they  prize, 
until  those  rights  have  been  definitely  taken  from  them 
by  some  organized  minority. 

Hence,  while  we  hug  ourselves  in  the  belief  that  the 
people  rule,  the  fact  is  that  the  people  only  rule  poten- 
tially, which  means,  as  we  have  endeavored  to  illustrate 
by  concrete  example  in  previous  articles,  that  the 
people  invariably  allow  the  power  which  is  vested  in 
them  to  be  usurped  by  the  few  who  have  the  energy 
and  the  ambition  to  seize  it  and  promptly  apply  it 
to  the  furtherance  of  their  own  narrow  theories  and 
fancies. 

There  is,  and  always  has  been,  only  one  remedy  for 
this  condition,  and  it  is  the  discussion  of  that  remedy 
which  forms  the  ultimate  object  of  these  articles.  To 
make  its  power  felt,  and  secure  its  own  rights,  the 
majority  must  emulate  the  example  of  the  ruling 
minority,  and  organize  in  defense  of  those  rights  as 


314  Personal  Liberty. 

the  minority  organizes  to  destroy  them.  The  force 
inherent  in  numbers,  let  them  be  ever  so  large,  is  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  ineffective,  unless  it  is  directed 
by  some  knowledge  common  to  all,  and  inspired  with 
some  definite  purpose,  in  the  attainment  of  which  all 
agree  to  unite.  The  right  of  franchise  is  such  a  force, 
and  however  much  we  may  pride  ourselves  on  its 
possession,  it  is  of  no  more  practical  value  to  us,  unless 
we  know  how  to  use  it,  than,  for  instance,  the  modern 
rifle  would  be  of  value  in  the  hands  of  a  soldier  who 
had  learned  nothing  of  its  construction  and  inner 
mechanism.  To  suppose  that  our  liberties  are  safe, 
merely  because  we  elect  those  who  govern  us,  is  the 
most  fatal  of  errors.  It  is  as  easy  to  eiect  tyrants  as  it 
is  to  have  them  handed  down  to  us  by  the  law  of 
dynastic  succession.  In  either  case  it  is  merely  the 
lack  of  that  knowledge  which  is  indispensable  to  the 
proper  application  of  our  collective  power  to  govern 
those  who  govern  us  that  renders  us  subject  to  the 
tyranny  of  others. 

Lest  we  lay  ourselves  open  to  the  charge  of  exagger- 
ation, let  us  ask  the  reader  to  examine  this  statement 
in  the  light  of  his  own  personal  experience  as  a  voter. 
How  much  does  he  trouble  to  learn,  as  a  rule,  about 
the  men  whom  his  vote  helps  to  elect  to  office,  beyond 
their  mere  names  and  the  particular  party  emblem 
under  which  those  names  appear  on  the  ballot?  Not 
one  in  ten  voters  goes  to  the  pains  of  ascertaining  any- 


Personal  Liberty.  315 

thing  more.  Yet  it  is  into  the  hands  of  such  men  that 
he  commits  the  defense  of  his  liberties,  relying  upon 
the  party  to  which  he  owes  allegiance  to  see  that  those 
liberties  are  protected. 

And  herein  lies  his  grievous  error.  He  forgets  that 
his  very  vote  for  a  man  who  believes  in  curtailing  the 
personal  liberty  of  the  citizen  is  a  notice  to  the  party 
which  has  nominated  that  man  that  he,  the  voter  him- 
self, approves  of  such  curtailment.  For  a  political 
party  does  not  assume  that  those  who  vote  for  its 
candidates  do  so  in  complete  ignorance  of  the  prin- 
ciples for  which  those  candidates  individually  stand, 
and  since  the  majority  of  those  elected  in  any  party 
shape  that  party's  policy,  the  result  is  only  too  often 
that  this  blind  voting  of  the  individual  franchise-holder 
drives  the  leaders  of  the  party  themselves  into  an 
attitude  directly  contrary  to  that  desired  by  the  great 
majority  of  voters  from  whom  the  party  derives  its 
power  and  strength. 

It  is  this  simple  and  irrefutable  fact  which  makes  it 
possible,  in  a  country  where  the  people  as  a  whole  are 
supposed  to  rule,  for  a  comparatively  small,  but  well- 
organized,  faction  of  that  people  to  impose  its  will 
upon  the  great  majority  of  the  citizens.  It  is  this 
fact  which  has  resulted,  at  this  day,  in  placing  the 
most  cherished  liberties  of  the  American  citizen  in 
jeopardy,  and  unless  the  individual  voter,  who  loves 
and  prizes  those  liberties,  arouses  himself,  at  this 


316  Personal  Liberty. 

eleventh  hour,  from  his  unpardonable  lethargy,  and 
does  his  individual  share  in  protecting  them,  they  will 
be  wrested  from  him,  with  all  the  consequences  that 
follow  the  submission  of  a  free  people  to  the  arbitrary 
dictation  of  a  few. 

We  ask  no  pardon  for  this  plain  speaking.  The  cry 
for  liberty  on  the  part  of  men  struggling  against  all 
the  odds  of  a  tyrannical  power  which  holds  them  in 
subjection  excites  our  pity  and  innermost  sympathy. 
But  that  same  cry,  if  it  remains  but  a  mere  cry  on 
the  lips  of  men  who  are  possessed  of  all  the  power 
necessary  to  secure  the  liberty  they  desire,  is  little 
short  of  contemptible. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  an  overwhelming  majority 
of  the  people  of  this  country  are  at  heart  bitterly 
opposed  to  the  aims  and  the  methods  of  those  who  pre- 
tend that  they  can  bring  about  the  millennium  by 
depriving  men  by  law  of  the  right  to  determine  what 
products  of  nature  they  shall  use  or  not  use,  what 
pleasures  they  shall  pursue,  what  customs  they  shall 
indulge,  or  even  whether  they  shall  laugh  or  cry  on  the 
Lord's  Day.  There  is  also  no  doubt  that  this  majority 
has  the  power  to  prevent  the  enactment  of  any  such 
laws.  Yet  our  statute  books  are  becoming  crowded 
with  them.  And  why? 

The  answer  is  simple.  Because  most  of  those  who 
constitute  this  overwhelming  majority  are  content  to 
leave  the  defense  of  their  liberties  to  their  neighbor, 


Personal  Liberty.  317 

and  since  their  neighbor  takes  the  same  course,  the 
result  is  that  everybody's  business  becomes  nobody's 
business,  and  the  most  important  duty  devolving  upon 
the  individual  citizen  is  sadly  neglected  by  all. 


The  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day 

Address  Delivered  at  the  Annual  Outing  of  the  Per- 
sonal Liberty  League  of  Cuyahoga  County, 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  July  22,  1914.  " 

When  I  consider  the  subject  on  which  I  am  to 
address  you  to-day,  I  feel  very  much  like  the  man  who 
undertook  to  carry  coals  to  Newcastle.  It  savors, 
indeed,  almost  of  presumption  for  anyone  to  come  be- 
fore a  gathering  of  Cleveland  citizens  on  an  occasion 
like  this  one,  and  pretend  to  be  able  to  tell  them 
anything  about  the  need  of  a  liberty  day.  It  looks 
like  a  bold  attempt  to  plagiarize  another  man's  play, 
and  then  invite  him  to  witness  its  performance,  or  to 
steal  another  man's  invention,  and  then  ask  him  to 
listen  to  a  discourse  on  the  originality  of  the  patent. 

I  want,  therefore,  to  set  myself  right  with  you  at 
the  start,  and  say  that  I  have  made  no  effort  to  copy- 
right the  title  of  my  address,  because  that  title  was 
copyrighted  by  the  citizens  of  Cleveland  six  years  ago, 
and  Cleveland's  claim  to  it  is  inviolable. 

It  is,  in  fact,  just  because  you  men  and  women  of 
Cleveland  have  so  clearly  demonstrated  this  idea  of  a 
liberty  day  to  the  nation  at  large  that  I  am  here — not 
to  lay  claim  to  the  patent  of  that  idea,  but  to  discuss 


Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  319 

with  the  real  and  legitimate  patentees  the  need,  the 
grave  need,  of  its  exploitation  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  our  great  country. 

For  there  is  indeed  need,  and  very  grave  need,  for 
setting  apart  a  day,  like  this  day,  which  you  celebrate 
annually  in  Cleveland,  when  the  lovers  of  liberty  in  the 
nation  at  large  may  gather  in  their  millions,  as  you 
are  gathered  here  in  your  thousands,  in  order  to  serve 
notice  on  those  wh(5  would  deprive  them  of  that  liberty 
that  they  stand  united  as  one  man,  ready  to  defend  it 
against  all  comers,  ready,  for  its  sake,  to  merge  all 
individual  differences,  great  or  small,  social,  racial,  or 
political,  in  the  one  paramount  cause  common  to  all, 
the  preservation  of  the  birthright  of  every  American 
citizen  to  live  his  individual  life,  free  from  the  inter- 
ference of  tyrannous  overseers,  according  to  the  dic- 
tates of  his  own  conscience,  and  according  to  the  light 
of  his  own  reason  and  intelligence. 

We  celebrate  on  our  great  national  holiday,  the 
Fourth  of  July,  the  declaration  of  our  independence  of 
the  yoke  of  foreign  dominion.  That  celebration  is  not 
a  mere  anniversary  ceremony.  It  has  the  far  deeper 
purpose  of  keeping  alive  in  the  mind  of  the  individual 
American  citizen,  who  enjoys  the  liberties  secured  for 
him  with  the  blood  of  his  forefathers,  the  fact  that  those 
liberties  were  handed  down  to  him,  not  as  a  heritage  to 
waste  or  dissipate,  but  as  a  sacred  trust,  to  maintain 
and  defend  for  himself  and  his  posterity  against  all 


320  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

aggressors.  It  has  the  purpose,  in  other  words,  of 
causing  us  annually  to  renew  the  solemn  covenant 
entered  into  by  our  forefathers  on  that  momentous 
Fourth  of  July,  one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  years  ago, 
to  assert  and  maintain  our  birthright  as  a  nation,  to 
live  our  national  life,  free  from  the  interference  of 
tyrannous  overseers  beyond  the  seas,  according  to 
the  dictates  of  our  own  national  conscience,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  light  of  our  own  national  reason  and  intelli- 
gence. 

And  that  freedom  which  we  assert  as  a  nation  we 
must  assert  as  individual  citizens  of  that  nation,  or 
acknowledge  that  our  national  freedom  is  but  an 
empty  name  and  a  delusion.  There  is  no  such  thing 
conceivable  as  a  free  nation,  whose  citizens  are  deprived 
of  their  individual  freedom.  The  very  basis  of  our 
national  liberty  is  our  liberty  as  individuals^  and  who- 
soever attempts  to  assail  that  individual  liberty  of  ours, 
whether  it  be  the  representative  of  a  power  from  with- 
out, or  of  some  upstart  power  among  ourselves,  he 
attempts  to  lay  sacrilegious  hands  upon  the  liberty  of 
the  nation  itself.  No  matter  whether  that  attempt  be 
made  by  self-seeking  men,  whose  open  intent  it  is  to 
reduce  us  to  the  status  of  slavish  dependents  upon 
their  ambitious  will  and  pleasure,  or  whether  it  be  made 
under  the  more  plausible  and  alluring  pretext  of  bene- 
fiting us  morally  and  socially — the  result  is  the  same. 
An  assault  upon  our  individual  liberty,  under  whatso- 


Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  321 

ever  guise  it  be  made,  is  an  assault  upon  our  national 
liberty. 

This  is  no  mere  phrase,  my  friends.  What  I  have 
said  is  emblazoned  in  large  letters  upon  that  bulwark 
of  our  rights  and  privileges  as  American  citizens,  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  And  that  Consti- 
tution was  framed  as  it  is  for  one  obvious  reason. 
Because  the  wise  and  experienced  men  who  wrote  it 
knew  that  future  enemies  of  the  liberties  it  guaranteed 
us  were  as  likely  to  spring  up  from  within  the  nation 
as  from  without.  They  knew,  in  fact,  that  kings  and 
princes  are  not  the  only  tyrants  from  which  the  human 
race  has  suffered,  and  perhaps  not  the  worst;  indeed, 
that  the  over-weening  ambition  of  a  certain  class  of 
men  to  dominate  the  minds  and  souls  of  their  fellow- 
men  and  render  them  mentally  and  morally  subject  to 
their  particular  views  and  notions  is,  and  always  has 
been,  the  gravest  danger  that  threatens  human  liberty. 
That  is  why  our  Constitution  specifically  guarantees  us 
our  mental  and  moral  independence,  not  only  as  a 
nation,  but  as  individuals,  and  that  is  why  those  who 
take  the  oath  of  allegiance  as  citizens  of  this  country 
must  bind  themselves  by  that  oath  to  defend  its  Con- 
stitution and  laws  against  all  enemies,  domestic  as  well 
as  foreign. 

There  is  no  need  for  me  to  tell  you  who  those  domes- 
tic enemies  of  our  American  independence  are.  Your 
presence  here  is  proof  abundant  that  you  do  know 


322  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

them.  But  merely  to  know  them  is  not  enough.  What 
is  of  far  greater  importance  is  to  know  how  to  meet 
and  overcome  them,  and  it  is  the  acquisition  of  that 
knowledge,  so  sorely  needed  to-day  by  the  millions 
of  our  liberty-loving  fellow-citizens,  that  should  form 
the  supreme  object  of  such  gatherings  as  this. 

Enthusiasm  for  a  cause  is  a  great  thing,  but  by  itself 
alone  it  never  secured  a  victory.  We  may  be  stirred 
toi  the  very  depths  of  our  souls  by  the  words  and  the 
melody  of  our  national  anthem,  yet  the  grandest 
national  anthem  man  ever  conceived  never  won  a  battle. 
What,  indeed,  would  our  great  Fourth  of  July  celebra- 
tion avail  us  if,  during  the  remaining  three  hundred 
and  sixty- four  days  of  the  year  we  failed  to  apply, 
in  the  actual  practice  of  our  daily  life,  the  solemn 
lesson  which  it  teaches  us — the  need  of  concerted  effort 
to  preserve  the  glorious  heritage  that  has  descended  to 
us  from  our  fathers,  the  necessity  of  that  eternal 
vigilance  which  we  know  to  be  the  price  of  our  lib- 
erty? It  is  what  we  do  on  these  three  hundred  and 
sixty-four  days  that  really  counts,  my  friends,  not 
what  we  do  on  this  one  day  which  we  set  apart  for  the 
consideration  of  that  which  requires  to  be  done.  To 
recognize  our  duty  is  one  thing;  to  perform  it  is 
another.  And  this  distinction  is  one  which  the  liberals 
of  this  country  should,  above  all  others,  take  to  heart, 
for  it  seems  to  be  the  besetting  sin  of  those  who  love 
liberty  that  they  take  their  liberty  too  much  for  granted, 


Ne<ed  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  323 

each  relying  upon  his  neighbor  to  do  what  all  must  do 
without  exception  if  our  liberty  is  to  be  preserved. 

Let  us  be  frank  with  ourselves.  The  trouble  is  that 
our  liberties  are  too  much  in  our  hearts  and  too  little 
in  our  heads;  that  we  talk  for  our  liberties  very  con- 
sistently, but  vote  for  them  very  inconsistently.  With 
those  who  would  take  our  liberties  from  us  the  case 
is  just  the  reverse.  It  is  their  heads  which  govern 
them,  perhaps  because  they  have  no  hearts  to  govern 
themselves  with,  and  while  they  talk  against  our 
liberties  very  inconsistently,  they  vote  against  them 
very  consistently. 

You  know  this  is  true.  But  do  you  realize  its  full 
bearing  upon  the  conditions  we  are  to-day  facing  in  this 
country?  Do  you  realise  that  it  is  the  true  and  only 
explanation  of  the  humiliating  fact  that  a  compara- 
tively small  band  of  organized  professional  agitators 
has  been  able  to  defy  the  overwhelmingly  liberal  senti- 
ment of  the  American  people,  and  carry  its  victorious 
assault  upon  that  people's  liberties  to  the  very  threshold 
of  Congress  itself? 

Our  press  and  our  humanitarian  societies  have  be- 
come greatly  aroused  of  late  about  what  is  known  as 
commercialized  vice,  and,  God  knows,  commercialized 
vice  is  damnable  beyond  the  power  of  words  to  express. 
But  I  will  name  something  to  you  which  is  even  more 
damnable  than  commercialized  vice,  something  which 
is  even  more  infamous  and  baneful  than  commercial- 


324  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

ized  vice,  and  which  is  at  this  day  threatening  to 
convert  the  greatest  nation  upon  earth  into  a  nation 
of  moral  cowards  and  craven  hypocrites.  That  thing 
is  commercialized  religion ! 

Its  practitioners,  who  trade  as  shamelessly  upon  the 
spiritual  instincts  of  men  as  certain  other  practitioners 
trade  upon  their  animal  instincts,  have  been  slowly 
supplanting  our  real  clergy,  the  great  majority  of 
whom  are  powerless  to  cope  with  the  morbid  emotion- 
alism which  they  foster  and  feed  on.  They  have 
invaded  our  churches,  they  have  penetrated  into  our 
homes,  they  have  degraded  our  politics,  and  they  have 
even  contaminated  our  press  itself.  They  have  sent 
more  unfortunates  to  the  insane  asylums  of  the  country 
than  all  other  factors  that  produce  insanity  put  to- 
gether, and  last,  but  not  least  important,  they  have 
called  into  existence  those  aforenamed  professional 
agitators,  who  are  turning  this  same  shameless  traffic 
in  men's  souls  into  a  means  of  undermining  the  very 
foundation  upon  which  our  individual  rights  and  privi- 
leges rest. 

Thus  we  see  our  most  sacred  spiritual  possession, 
our  religion,  prostituted  to  the  purpose  of  destroying 
our  most  sacred  temporal  possession,  our  liberty,  and 
yet  scarcely  a  voice  is  lifted  in  protest  against  this 
double  sacrilege.  And  why?  Because  so  few  have  the 
courage  to  proclaim  the  truth,  though  all  know  it. 
Because  so  few  have  the  initiative  to  speak  the  first 


Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  325 

word  of  stern  protest,  though  all  are  eagerly  listening 
for  that  word,  and  will  echo  it  from  one  end  of  the 
country  to  the  other  when  once  a  few  fearless  leaders 
utter  it. 

And  it  is  time  that  it  should  be  uttered,  unmistak- 
ably and  unequivocally,  in  every  center  of  the  land. 
It  is  time  for  plain  speaking,  and  not  only  for  plain 
speaking,  but  for  stern,  determined,  united  action. 

That  is  why  I  say  that  there  is  sore  need  for  a 
national  liberty  day,  when  all  lovers  of  liberty  may 
awaken  from  their  lethargy  and  indifference,  and  may 
learn  to  hear  and  speak  the  truth,  which  they  all  feel, 
but  few  dare  express ;  when  they  may  counsel  with 
one  another  upon  these  grave  dangers  that  confront 
them,  and  devise  ways  and  means  to  avert  them;  when 
they  may  meet  their  fellows,  and  unburden  their  hearts 
to  each  other,  without  fear  of  the  vengeful  wrath  of 
those  who  have  banded  themselves  together  to  wreak 
destruction,  temporal  and  spiritual,  upon  all  who  differ 
from  their  narrow  belief  in  enforced  morality  and 
mental  coercion ;  when  they  may  call  upon  their  preach- 
ers to  return  to  their  duty,  which  so  many  of  them  have 
forsaken,  and  which  is  to  preach  God's  word,  and  not 
meddle  in  the  affairs  of  Caesar;  and  when  they  may 
call  upon  the  servants  of  Caesar,  which  are  our  chosen 
law-givers,  to  attend  to  the  affairs  of  Caesar,  and  not 
suffer  the  law  of  man  to  trespass  on  the  domain  which 
is  subject  to  God's  law. 


326  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

I  know  that  these  are  serious  words  that  I  am  speak- 
ing. But  I  am  not  uttering  them  lightly.  Nor  will 
the  fact  that  I  have  uttered  them,  and  you  have  heard 
them,  signify  more  than  the  rustling  of  the  evening 
wind  in  the  trees  of  this  park,  if  they  remain  mere 
words  that  have  passed  from  me  to  you.  It  is  not  the 
response  you  give  to  them  to-night  that  counts,  but  the 
response  that  you  will  give  to  them  when  you  return 
to  your  homes. 

I  have  said  that  a  patriotic  song,  inspiring  though  it 
be,  never  won  a  battle.  And  I  may  say  with  equal 
truth  that  a  liberty  day,  however  enthusiastically  you 
may  celebrate  it,  will  never,  of  itself,  secure  your 
liberties.  It  is  our  disciplined  army  and  navy,  drilled 
in  the  use  of  their  weapons,  and  drilled  to  use  them 
with  accurate  knowledge  and  unerring  aim,  that  keep 
the  enemy  at  a  respectful  distance  from  our  nation's 
shores.  And  without  such  weapons,  intelligently  used, 
all  the  patriotism  of  a  great  people  would  prove  power- 
less to  protect  it  from  the  encroachment  of  its  ambi- 
tious neighbors. 

And  so  it  is  with  us,  and  the  defense  of  our  liberties 
against  the  organized  assault  of  those  who  are  seeking 
to  destroy  them.  If  we  would  preserve  those  liberties, 
we  must  fight  for  them,  and  if  we  would  fight  for 
them  successfully,  we  must  drill  ourselves,  as  our  army 
and  navy  are  drilled,  in  the  effective  use  of  the  weapons 
we  possess  to  defend  them  with.  These  weapons  are 


Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  327 

not  rifles  and  cannon  and  other  deadly  engines  of 
destruction,  but  they  are  equally  well  adapted  to  the 
purpose  for  which  they  are  designed,  and — what  is 
more  significant — they  are  equally  useless  and  ineffec- 
tive in  the  hands  of  those  who  have  not  learned  to  use 
them  with  knowledge,  care  and  intelligence. 

The  weapons  I  refer  to  are  our  votes,  and  the  point 
I  am  endeavoring  to  bring  home  to  you  is  that  it  is 
as  imperative  for  us  to  learn  how  to  vote  accurately 
against  the  enemy  of  our  liberties  at  home  as  it  is  for 
our  army  and  navy  to  learn  how  to  shoot  accurately 
at  the  enemies  of  our  liberty  abroad. 

I  say  again,  this  is  no  mere  figure  of  speech.  If  I 
were  not  addressing  men  of  Ohio,  it  might  be  necessary 
for  me  to  enter  into  an  exhaustive  explanation  of  my 
meaning.  But  it  is  just  you  men  of  Ohio  who  have 
taught  me  the  truth  of  what  I  have  said,  because  what 
I  have  expressed  in  mere  words  you  proved  by  actual 
practical  demonstration  six  years  ago  to  the  nation  at 
large,  and  whenever  men  gather  in  other  States  to-day 
to  consult  about  the  ways  and  means  of  defending  their 
liberties,  the  first  question  that  arises  to  every  man's 
lips  is,  "How  did  they  do  it  in  Ohio?" 

And  how  did  you  men  of  Ohio  do  it?  By  asserting 
the  principle,  which  every  true  republican,  every  true 
democrat,  and  every  true  progressive  should  assert, 
namely,  that  when  the  question  of  our  liberty  is  in- 
volved, the  American  citizen  recognizes  and  owes 


328  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

allegiance  only  to  the  one  supreme  party  in  this  coun- 
try, to  which  all  other  parties  belong,  and  that  is  the 
American  party.  And  whether  he  be  republican,  demo- 
crat, or  progressive,  no  man  can  give  stronger  proof  of 
his  loyalty  to  the  particular  political  faith  which  he 
confesses  than  by  just  asserting  that  principle.  It  is, 
indeed,  of  the  very  essence  of  true  party  affiliation 
that  we  should  demand  of  our  respective  party  that 
the  men  it  asks  us  to  support  for  office  should  first 
stand  the  test  of  true  American  citizenship,  not  only 
in  name,  but  in  sentiment,  in  idea,  and  in  principle. 
And  a  man  is  not  a  true  American  if  he  stands,  under 
whatsoever  guise  or  pretext,  for  principles  that  tend  to 
curtail  the  individual  liberty  of  the  American  people; 
and  in  saying  this,  I  don't  care  whether  such  a  man's 
ancestors  came  over  to  this  country  in  the  Mayflower 
or  whether  he  was  the  first  of  his  family  to  set  foot  on 
these  shores;  I  don't  care  whether  such  a  man  claim  to 
be  a  republican,  or  a  democrat,  or  a  progressive;  I 
don't  care  whether  he  be  a  millionaire  or  a  pauper,  a 
stranger,  a  friend,  or  a  brother.  The  charter  of  our 
liberties  is  inviolate.  It  is  more  sacred  than  the  tie  of 
blood,  more  sacred  than  the  bond  of  friendship,  and 
more  sacred  than  the  obligation  of  party  fealty. 

And  there  is  but  one  liberty  that  our  great  charter 
can  assure  us,  namely,  our  personal  liberty,  which 
means  the  right  to  live  our  individual  life  according 
to  the  dictates  of  our  own  conscience,  and  according  to 


Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  329 

the  light  of  our  own  reason  and  intelligence.  There  is 
absolutely  no  restriction  placed  upon  that  liberty, 
excepting  one,  and  that  is  that  we  shall  not  abuse  it 
to  the  detriment  of  our  neighbor  or  the  society  we 
live  in. 

To  guard  against  such  abuse,  the  State  has  been 
invested  with  an  authority  known  as  the  police  power, 
which  means  the  power  to  prevent  and  punish  crime ;  to 
guard  against  public  calamities;  to  maintain  order  and 
decency;  and  to  regulate  man's  public  intercourse  with 
man.  Under  this  power  a  person  who  abuses  his  lib- 
erty to  the  injury  or  inconvenience  of  others  may  be 
deprived  of  it,  and  rightly  so.  But  the  fact  that  my 
neighbor  abuses  his  liberty  is  no  warrant  to  the  police 
power,  or  to  any  other  power,  to  take  away  my  liberty. 
We  know,  and  always  have  known,  that  some  men  have 
a  tendency  to  commit  crime,  or  to  gamble,  or  to  squan- 
der their  patrimony;  that  some  men  are  liable  to 
become  insane,  or  to  spread  disease,  or  to  indulge  in 
foolish  excesses,  or  otherwise  offend  against  public 
order  and  decency,  and  we  have  for  that  reason  vested 
in  our  government  the  authority  to  place  such  men 
under  restraint.  But  when  the  government  exercises 
that  power  over  all  men  indiscriminately,  and  restricts 
the  personal  liberty  of  the  entire  community  because 
of  the  delinquency  of  a  few  of  its  members,  it  usurps 
an  authority  that  was  never  vested  in  it  by  the  people, 
and  violates  the  fundamental  principle  upon  which  our 
Constitution  rests. 


330  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

Yet  this  is  what  is  occurring  daily,  and  has  been 
occurring  daily  year  after  year  in  our  generation,  until 
the  tendency  to  use  the  police  power  to  deprive  us  of 
the  rights  and  privileges  guaranteed  us  by  our  Consti- 
tution has  assumed  proportions  of  the  most  alarming 
character.  And  upon  what  ground  is  this  tendency 
being  justified?  Upon  the  ground,  put  forth  by  those 
who  are  fostering  it,  that  the  weak  and  defective  among 
us  must  be  protected,  and  that,  since  the  weak  and 
defective  are  notoriously  incapable  of  the  proper  exer- 
cise of  their  free  will,  therefore  the  right  to  exercise 
such  free  will  must  be  denied  to  us  all. 

Hence,  instead  of  following  the  wise  custom  of 
centuries,  namely,  to  improve  our  defective  fellow- 
beings  by  endeavoring  to  raise  them  to  the  level  of  the 
healthy  normal  majority,  the  absurd  policy  is  now  being 
pursued  of  endeavoring  to  improve  the  few  defectives 
among  men  by  reducing  the  healthy  normal  majority 
to  the  level  of  those  defectives.  Nay,  is  it  not  largely 
the  weakling  and  the  defective  who  are  prescribing  our 
laws  at  this  present  day?  Who,  for  instance,  is  shout- 
ing loudest  for  those  laws  which  aim  to  make  all  men 
virtuous  by  compulsion?  The  reformed  libertine. 
Who,  above  all  others,  is  claiming  the  power  to  regu- 
late our  personal  habits,  and  make  all  men  sober  and 
honest  by  law?  The  reformed  gambler  and  drunkard. 
Who  is  clamoring  most  noisily  for  the  right  to  direct 
us,  by  legislative  enactment,  into  the  paths  of  right- 


Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  331 

eousness?  The  reformed  crook.  And  so  on  all  down 
the  line.  Our  public  platforms  swarm  with  these  quon- 
dam reprobates,  who  parade  their  own  miserable  fail- 
ure to  live  in  a  state  of  freedom  as  a  reason  why  all 
men  should  forfeit  their  liberty.  They  pose  in  our 
magazines,  they  infest  our  literature,  and  they  even 
trespass  upon  the  sanctity  of  our  tabernacles.  It  has 
come  to  such  a  pass,  indeed,  that  if  a  man  has  lived  a 
particularly  vicious  or  criminal  life  and  is  found  out, 
he  need  only  declare  his  undying  hatred  of  individual 
liberty  in  sufficiently  profane  and  obscene  language,  in 
order  to  be  promptly  hailed  by  the  self-styled  moral 
forces  of  the  country  as  a  prophet  and  an  evangelist. 

The  honest  man,  the  sober  man,  and  the  righteous 
man  are  no  longer  considered  in  the  making  of  our 
laws,  and  instead  of  a  nation  in  which  the  normal 
majority  rules  and  regulates  the  defective  minority,  we 
are  fast  becoming  a  nation  in  which  the  weak  and  de- 
fective pass  laws  for  the  control  and  the  regulation 
of  the  strong  and  healthy. 

And  who  are  the  prime  instigators  of  this  pernicious 
movement  that  sets  up  self-confessed  crooks,  and 
gamblers,  and  drunkards,  and  libertines  to  direct  men 
into  the  paths  of  rectitude  and  teach  them,  by  the 
example  of  their  own  despicable  weakness,  that  hon- 
esty, continency  and  sobriety  are  virtues  only  attainable 
by  compulsion  of  law?  Under  whatsoever  colors  they 
may  sail,  whether  as  Purity  Leagues,  Moral  Uplift 


332  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

Societies,  Prohibition  Party,  or  Anti-Saloon  League, 
they  are,  one  and  all,  traceable  to  one  well-defined 
group  of  religious  denominations,  which,  under  one 
guise  or  another,  are  aiming  to  force  their  religious 
and  moral  conceptions  upon  the  community  as  a  whole. 
We  all  know  their  name,  but  we  rarely  mention  it 
above  a  whisper.  Yet  the  day  is  approaching,  my 
friends,  when  that  name  will  have  to  be  proclaimed 
loudly  and  insistently  in  this  country  by  all  who  desire 
to  retain  the  right  to  exercise  their  own  religious  faith, 
by  all  who  desire  to  worship  their  Maker  according 
to  their  own  individual  conception  of  Him,  and  to 
receive  His  bountiful  gifts,  as  they  themselves  see 
them,  not  as  those  gifts  may  be  damned  or  commended 
by  men  who  claim  to  be  wiser  than  He. 

You  can  hasten  the  coming  of  this  day,  my  friends ; 
not,  indeed,  by  merely  whispering  the  real  name  of 
this  arrogant  enemy  of  our  freedom,  nor  by  passing 
high-sounding  resolutions  denouncing  his  insidious  aims 
and  designs,  but  by  emulating  his  own  shrewd  methods 
and  organizing  in  a  solid  body  to  destroy  his  power  as 
he  has  organized  to  establish  it.  No  matter  whether  he 
call  himself  the  Anti- Saloon  League,  or  whether  he 
insolently  claim  to  be  the  Church  in  action,  these  names 
are  mere  traps  to  catch  the  unwary,  for  behind  them  lie 
purposes  infinitely  more  far-reaching  than  the  mere 
interference  with  our  customs  and  pastimes  and  pleas- 
ures. There  are  thousands  of  men,  including  the  great 


Ne,ed  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  333 

body  of  our  enlightened  clergy,  who  know  this  enemy 
of  ours  and  his  real  purposes,  but  who  take  no  part  in 
combating  him,  because  they  shrink  from  his  venomous 
tongue  and  its  ruthless  slanders.  There  are  thousands 
in  this  free  country  who  cringe  to  him,  not  from  con- 
viction, but  from  fear  of  his  relentless  power,  and 
from  distrust  of  your  ability  to  overthrow  it;  men  who 
love  the  light  of  God's  sun,  which  he  would  darken 
because  some  are  blinded  by  it;  men  who  in  secret 
revel  in  the  smile  of  radiant  life-pulsing  nature,  which 
he  would  convert  into  a  frown,  because  some  are  infat- 
uated by  it.  His  power  is  rooted  in  their  bondage,  and 
their  servility  is  the  metal  from  which  he  fashions 
his  weapons.  It  is  in  your  hands  to  wrest  that  power 
from  him  and  smite  him  with  his  own  weapons.  All 
these  things  have  been  before.  Men  may  be  weak, 
and  foolish,  and  small,  and  cowardly,  but  the  love  of 
freedom  is  an  instinct  of  human  nature  which  no 
human  power  can  destroy  and  no  human  law  can  per- 
manently suppress. 

You  have  proved  this  in  Ohio,  yet  this  enemy  flour- 
ishes still,  and  will  continue  to  flourish  until  you  unite 
in  your  scattered  millions  as  he  has  united  in  his 
organized  thousands.  You  can  accomplish  this,  but 
you  can  only  accomplish  it  if  you  will  act  as  one 
compact  army,  in  which  each  soldier  performs  his 
allotted  duty,  obedient  to  the  call  of  his  chosen  officers; 
in  which  the  leaders  select  the  point  of  attack,  and  the 


334  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

rank  and  file  advance  solidly  to  the  assault,  fired  with 
but  one  thought — the  success  of  the  cause,  and  inspired 
with  but  one  faith — the  faith  in  the  knowledge  and 
wisdom  of  those  who  lead  them.  For  some  of  us  must 
be  generals,  and  some  must  be  soldiers,  but  the  glory 
of  the  victorious  battle  is  common  to  all.  Which  of  us 
asks,  indeed,  as  he  doffs  his  hat  to  the  veterans  who 
pass  us  as  we  line  the  streets  on  memorial  day,  who 
was  the  general  and  who  the  soldier?  We  greet  them 
one  and  all  as  the  nation's  defenders,  and  the  humblest 
shares  our  reverence  equally  with  the  most  exalted. 

And  so  let  it  be  with  you.  You  have  your  captains 
and  generals.  Follow  them.  You  have  the  component 
parts  of  a  great  army  ready  at  hand — your  associations, 
your  clubs,  your  social  societies,  and  your  friendly 
orders.  Convert  them,  for  liberty's  sake,  into  regi- 
ments and  brigades,  with  leaders  to  direct  and  officers 
to  instruct  you  how  to  so  apply  your  united  voting 
power,  locally,  by  State,  and  nationally,  that  no  enemy 
of  liberty, .  open  or  secret,  may  escape  detection  and 
reach  our  legislative  halls  to  destroy  what  your  man- 
date enjoins  him  to  protect.  And  where  you  have  no 
such  societies,  create  them,  not  only  for  the  perpetua- 
tion of  the  ideals,  the  principles  and  the  customs  that 
have  been  handed  down  to  you  by  your  fathers,  but  for 
their  militant  defense.  Don't  place  your  cross  against 
the  name  of  any  candidate  at  the  polls  until  you  have 
received  the  assurance  of  those  whom  you  can  trust 


Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  335 

to  know  that  he  is  sound  on  the  principle  of  liberty. 
It  is  far  better  not  to  cast  your  vote  at  all  than  to  risk 
casting  it  for  one  who  will  use  it  to  betray  you.  And, 
above  all,  do  not  judge  those  who  wish  to  represent 
you  by  their  promise  of  what  they  will  do  in  the  future, 
but  by  the  record  of  what  they  have  done  in  the  past. 
Remember  that  the  leopard  never  changes  his  spots. 
There  are  men  among  you  who  know  these  records, 
and  it  is  your  duty  to  make  their  knowledge  yours. 

These  are  practical  suggestions,  simple  as  the  ABC, 
I  know,  but  it  is  just  the  simplest  things  of  life  that 
we  are  most  apt  to  overlook.  No  man  is  so  foolish 
as  to  knowingly  desert  a  friend  in  order  to  support  an 
enemy.  Yet  this  very  thing  is  done  unknowingly 
every  day  by  the  liberal-minded  men  of  this  country, 
for  how  often  have  they  been  cajoled  by  the  seductive 
promises  of  some  apparently  repentant  enemy  into  for- 
getting the  services  of  a  true  and  loyal  friend?  I  say 
to  you  that  I  would  rather  be  dragged  down  to  defeat 
at  the  heels  of  the  humblest  champion  of  liberty  than 
rise  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  success  hanging  to  the 
coat-tails  of  liberty's  most  exalted  adversary.  The 
triumph  of  our  cause  depends  more  upon  the  encour- 
agement we  give  to  its  friends  than  it  does  upon  the 
punishment  we  mete  out  to  its  enemies.  And  our 
cause  has  friends  to  whose  magnificent  efforts  in  its 
behalf  many  of  us  have  not  given  the  full  measure  of 
recognition  which  they  deserve. 


336  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

Let  me  refer  particularly  to  the  great  liberal  press  of 
the  country,  and  more  particularly  still  to  that  con- 
tingent of  the  liberal  press  which  we  so  woefully  miscall 
when  we  speak  of  it  as  the  Foreign  Language  Press. 
I  want  to  say  to  you  that,  in  whatsoever  languages 
these  great  newspapers  appeal  to  their  millions  of 
readers,  there  are  none  in  this  country  that  show  a 
greater  mastery  of  the  real  American  tongue  than  they 
do.  It  is  through  them  that  the  often  crude,  though 
splendid,  human  material  which  flows  to  us  year  after 
year  from  foreign  lands,  to  augment  our  existing  citi- 
zenship, is  endowed  with  the  true  American  spirit  and 
the  true  knowledge  and  appreciation  of  American 
thought,  American  ideals,  and  American  patriotism. 
They  are,  by  all  odds,  the  staunchest  defenders  of  the 
rights  and  privileges  which  we  love  so  dearly,  and 
their  tongue  appears  foreign  only  to  those  who  have 
themselves  become  foreign  to  the  language  in  which 
our  forefathers  spoke — the  language  of  freedom  and 
liberty.  Our  debt  of  gratitude  to  this  great  press  is 
deep  and  lasting,  and  we  should  at  least  endeavor  to 
discharge  that  debt  by  cheering  and  encouraging  it, 
and  by  helping  to  extend  its  influence  and  multiply  its 
power  wherever  that  influence  and  power  are  exercised. 

There  are  some  men  among  you  who  can  do  this 
more  effectively  than  others,  and  it  is  to  them  especially 
that  I  address  this  appeal.  But  let  none  of  us  depend 
upon  the  efforts  of  his  neighbor,  and  think  that  his 


Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  33? 

liberty  is  safe  because  that  neighbor  is  alert  in  its 
defense.  That  is  how,  in  all  ages,  the  rights  of  the 
many  have  become  subservient  to  the  ambition  of  the 
few,  for  if  the  mere  will  of  the  greater  number  gov- 
erned our  human  conditions,  tyrants  and  despots  would 
have  been  unknown  to  history,  and  liberty  would  have 
been  as  easily  accessible  to  men  as  the  air  they  breathe. 
It  is  not  the  will  alone,  but  the  concerted  expression  of 
that  will,  which  counts.  It  is  not  numbers  that  give 
power,  but  the  quality  of  the  co-operation  that  exists 
among  them. 

There  is  not  a  man  within  reach  of  my  voice  who 
cannot  contribute  his  share  towards  perfecting  that 
very  co-operation  among  our  numbers  which  I  speak 
of,  not  a  man  who  has  not  some  laggard  friend  who 
loves  his  liberty  well,  but  thinks  it  is  his  neighbor's 
business  to  protect  and  preserve  it  for  him.  It  is  the 
inertness  of  such  laggards  among  us,  not  the  power 
inherent  in  the  enemy  of  our  liberties,  which  makes  that 
enemy  so  strong.  Let  every  man  of  you,  therefore,  go 
out  into  the  highways  and  byways  and  gather  in  these 
sluggish  friends  of  liberty  and  rally  them  around  its 
banner.  Where  some  lead,  many  will  follow,  and 
when  many  call,  all  will  answer.  Don't  be  satisfied 
with  this  year's  outpouring  of  Cleveland  liberals,  mag- 
nificent though  it  is,  but  see  to  it,  one  and  all,  that  next 
year  thousands  are  added  to  your  numbers  to-day.  Let 
no  one  plead  business  duties  as  an  excuse  for  inactivity. 


338  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day. 

No  man's  business  is  more  pressing  than  the  defense 
of  his  liberties.  Example  is  the  parent  of  all  human 
endeavor,  and  there  is  no  man  too  humble  and  insignifi- 
cant to  set  a  good  example  to  his  fellows,  nor  is  there 
any  man  too  great  and  exalted  to  follow  such  example, 
though  it  be  set  him  by  the  humblest  of  his  fellow- 
mortals. 

And  the  greatest  example  of  all,  my  friends,  is  that 
which  men  set  each  other  collectively.  Ohio  set  one 
such  example  to  the  nation  six  years  ago,  when  her 
liberty-loving  sons  rose  in  their  legions  and,  smiting 
the  enemy  of  liberty  at  the  very  hour  of  his  expected 
final  triumph,  drove  him  from  his  fastness  and  put 
him  to  ignominious  rout.  Let  the  liberal  sons  of  Ohio 
now  give  one  more  such  example,  and  send  a  clarion 
call  all  over  this  wide  land  to  their  fellow-liberals  in 
every  city,  village  and  hamlet  of  the  nation,  to  come 
forth  annually  on  such  a  day  as  this  and  gather  in 
their  millions  where  all  men  may  see  them  and  measure, 
as  they  themselves  should  learn  to  measure,  the  mighty 
force  which  they  represent. 

For  the  time  has  come  when  city  and  State  can  no 
longer  fight  single-handed  against  this  growing  en- 
croachment upon  our  freedom  as  men  and  citizens, 
but  when  the  nation  as  a  whole  must  be  called  to  enter 
the  combat  and  bring  it  to  a  final  and  decisive  issue. 
And  the  nation  will  respond,  if  the  call  rings  true. 

There  is  no  stronger  bond  between  men  than  their 


Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day.  339 

love  of  freedom,  but,  to  establish  this  bond  securely  and 
firmly,  friend  must  meet  friend,  and  comrade  must 
know  comrade,  each  drawing  faith  from  the  faith  of 
the  other,  each  adding  the  fuel  of  his  own  ardor  to  the 
flame  of  enthusiasm  that  burns  within  us  all. 

Help  to  bring  about  this  nation-wide  meeting  of 
friend  and  friend,  comrade  and  comrade,  and  I  say  to 
you  that  you  will  kindle  a  fire  in  this  land  which  will 
sweep  with  withering  might  over  the  hosts  of  fanaticism 
and  intolerance  that  have  invaded  it,  and  will  give 
birth  to  a  new  and  invincible  brotherhood  among  men— 
the  great  Brotherhood  of  American  Freemen. 

This  is  the  message  I  bring  to  you,  men  of  Ohio. 
And  I  bring  it  to  you  in  preference  to  all  others,  be- 
cause I  know  you,  and  have  taken  measure  of  your 
strength  and  your  manhood,-  because  I  have  lived  with 
you,  and  fought  with  you,  and  shared,  in  my  humble 
way,  in  your  triumph  in  the  cause  of  liberty,  because, 
in  short,  I  am  one  of  you,  a  part  of  your  flesh  and  your 
spirit,  a  son  of  Ohio,  as  proud  of  her  name,  and  as 
jealous  of  her  fame  among  the  States  of  the  Union, 
as  the  truest  and  best  of  you. 


The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition 

An  Address  Delivered  Before  a  Mass  Meeting  of 
Citizens  at  Music  Hall,  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  October 
30,  1914 

Mr.  Chairman,  Mr.  Mayor,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

There  is  no  need  for  me  to  dwell  upon  the  fact  that 
this  great  outpouring  of  citizens  to-night  marks  the 
closing  hours  of  a  campaign  upon  the  outcome  of  which 
depends  more  for  this  great  city  of  yours,  more  for 
the  great  State  which  it  adorns,  and  more  for  the 
entire  nation  which  is  to-day  holding  its  breath  in 
anticipation  of  that  outcome,  than  ever  depended  upon 
any  event  in  this  country  since  our  forefathers  cast  off 
the  yoke  of  foreign  dominion  and  established  the  prin- 
ciple of  self-government  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
Ocean. 

The  same  question  confronts  this  State  to-day,  and 
through  this  State  the  American  nation  at  large,  which 
confronted  our  great  forefathers  one  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  years  ago;  the  question,  namely,  "Shall 
we  submit  to  a  government  of  all  of  the  people  by 
some  of  the  people,  or  shall  we  fight  for  a  government 
of  all  of  the  people  by  all  of  the  people?" 


The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition.  341 

It  is  only  those  that  are  thoughtless,  or  ignorant, 
or  blinded  by  unreasoning  prejudice,  who  believe  that 
the  real  contention  raised  by  the  prohibitionist  is 
merely  that  of  drink  or  no  drink.  I  say  to  you  that 
if  nature  were  to  take  it  into  her  head  to-morrow  no 
longer  to  give  life  to  the  germs  of  fermentation,  and 
thus  to  deprive  man  of  the  possibility  of  either  using 
or  abusing  one  of  the  greatest  gifts  she  has  bestowed 
upon  him — I  refer  to  the  cup  that  cheers — prohibition 
and  the  prohibitionist  wouldn't  be  affected  thereby  one 
particle.  True,  the  prohibitionist  might  lose  a  con- 
venient means  of  making  proselytes  for  his  real  pur- 
pose among  unthinking  though  well-meaning  people, 
but  that  real  purpose  itself  would  remain  untouched 
and  unaltered ;  the  only  trouble  the  prohibitionist  might 
be  put  to  would  be  to  find  some  new  convenient  mask 
behind  which  to  conceal  it. 

That  purpose  is  the  same  that  has  caused  man  to  war 
upon  man  since  the  history  of  the  human  race  began; 
that  purpose  is  the  same  that  has  caused  the  teachings 
of  the  greatest  reformer  our  world  has  seen  to  be  made 
a  hollow  mockery  of  by  many  of  those  who  claim  to-day 
to  be  his  servants  and  disciples;  that  purpose,  in  short, 
is  to  establish  the  ascendency  in  this  country  of  one 
group  of  religious  sects  over  all  others ;  in  other  words, 
to  compel  men  to  worship  their  Maker  according  to  the 
dictates  of  that  one  group  of  sects,  and  to  receive  His 
bountiful  gifts,  not  as  they  themselves  see  them,  but 


342  The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition. 

as  those  gifts  happen  to  be  damned  or  commended  by 
men  who  claim  to  be  wiser  than  He. 

That,  my  friends,  is  the  real  menace  of  prohibition, 
not  the  mere  danger  that  the  individual  may  be  de- 
prived of  his  liberty  to  indulge  in  a  glass  of  beer  or 
wine  if  he  so  pleases.  It  were  far  better,  indeed,  that 
even  this  liberty  should  be  sacrificed  than  that  the  real 
object  of  prohibition  should  be  attained;  the  destruc- 
tion of  that  most  sacred  treasure  which  men  have 
fought  for  centuries  to  gain,  which  they  have  bled  for 
and  died  for — their  liberty  of  conscience. 

Thousands  know  this,  and  yet  how  few  have  the 
courage  to  say  it,  even  in  a  whisper.  Thousands  know 
that,  because  of  this  unholy  propaganda  which  has 
been  substituted  for  the  gospel  of  Christ  by  certain 
religious  denominations  to-day,  the  pretender  and  the 
faker,  the  unfit  and  the  ignorant,  have  found  their 
way  into  our  seats  of  learning  and  even  into  our  pulpits, 
and  have  driven  out  of  them  the  true  and  the  just,  the 
clean  and  the  high-minded  men  who  are  alone  fitted 
to  occupy  them.  Thousands  know  that  it  is  of  far 
greater  importance  to  the  morals  of  our  community, 
and  to  the  future  development  of  our  young  ones,  that 
these  churches  and  schools  should  be  cleansed  of  these 
half-educated  and  sometimes  wholly  undesirable  ele- 
ments, which  have  forced  their  way  into  them  under 
the  pretentious  banner  of  prohibition,  than  that  society 
should  be  freed  from  evils  which  have  existed  among 
men  as  long  as  men  themselves  have  existed. 


The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition.  343 

Don't  imagine  that  I  am  minimizing  those  evils.  Far 
from  it.  I  am  merely  contrasting  them  with  another 
evil  that  is  infinitely  more  dangerous,  an  evil  which 
many  men  recognize,  but  which  most  men — I  speak 
with  brutal  frankness — are  too  cowardly  to  even  name. 

We  all  know  that  the  curse  of  excessive  indulgence 
in  drink  is  one  of  the  most  terrible  curses  that  individ- 
ual man  can  bring  upon  himself  and  those  who  belong 
to  him.  But  a  far  more  terrible  curse  than  excessive 
drinking,  or  any  other  excess  to  which  imperfect  man 
is  prone,  has  fallen  upon  this  entire  land  within  recent 
years,  and  that  is  the  curse  of  prohibition.  It  is  the 
the  curse  that  has  resulted  in  dividing  this  great  nation, 
not  only  socially  and  politically,  but  racially  and 
religiously,  into  two  violently  hostile  camps;  it  is  the 
curse  that  in  these  modern  days  has  turned  man  against 
man,  brother  against  brother,  class  against  class,  race 
against  race,  aye,  even  church  against  church;  it  is  the 
curse  that  has  spread  more  corruption,  more  hypocrisy, 
more  infamy  and  more  immorality  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  this  fair  land  of  ours  than  have 
all  the  evils  it  pretends  to  cure;  it  is  the  curse  that  has 
converted  the  beautiful  doctrine  of  Christian  love  into 
that  of  unchristian  hate;  it  is  the  curse  that  has  caused 
honest  men  to  eschew  the  truth  and  embrace  the  lie; 
the  curse  that  has  driven  the  fear  of  God  out  of  men's 
hearts  and  the  fear  of  man  into  them;  the  curse  that, 
under  the  pretense  of  saving  men  from  themselves,  is 


344  The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition. 

handing  them  over,  bound  hand  and  foot,  into  the  bond- 
age of  others.  It  is  the  curse  of  intolerance,  the  out- 
growth of  that  religious  hysteria  which  is  the  worst  and 
most  deadly  form  of  intemperance  known  to  the 
human  race. 

Prohibition  has  made  slaves  of  free  men,  cowards  of 
the  brave,  and  hypocrites  of  the  true.  It  has  emptied 
the  very  churches  it  was  intended  to  fill,  and  has  filled 
the  very  asylums  and  pesthouses  it  was  designed  to 
empty.  It  has  made  a  farce  of  the  sacred  things  of  life, 
and  a  tragedy  of  the  lighter.  It  has  made  sober  men 
drunkards,  and  drunken  men  more  drunken.  It  has 
corrupted  the  pure,  and  given  more  power  to  the  cor- 
rupt. But  worst  of  all,  its  crowning  iniquity,  is  that  it 
has  degraded  man's  most  sacred  possession,  his  re- 
ligion, into  the  most  sordid  of  traffics,  setting  the  word 
of  man  above  the  word  of  God,  and  converting  our 
temples  into  market  halls  for  the  bartering  of  political 
merchandise. 

This  is  the  real  prohibition  you  are  fighting,  my 
friends,  and  the  only  true  thing  ever  said  of  it  by  its 
advocates  is  that  it  is  a  moral  issue.  God  knows  that 
it  is  a  moral  issue,  and  may  the  really  moral  side 
of  that  issue  eventually  triumph. 

I  have  used  plain  words,  and  if  they  are  strong 
words  as  well  as  plain,  it  is  because  the  time  has 
come  to  speak  the  truth  on  this  subject  in  strong 
and  unequivocal  language.  It  is  the  truth,  as  I  have 


The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition.  345 

said,  which  thousands,  nay  millions  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  realize,  yet  which  so  few  dare  to  face.  And 
why? 

Go  into  the  thousands  of  towns  and  villages  and 
hamlets  of  this  free  country,  and  ask  the  business 
man,  the  professional  man,  aye,  even  the  laborer  and 
the  domestic,  why  they  shrink  in  terror  from  speak- 
ing their  true  thoughts  on  this  question  of  prohibition, 
and  they  will  tell  you  why — that  is,  provided  they 
are  sure  that  no  spy  or  eavesdropper  is  near.  They 
will  point,  perchance,  as  they  whisper  the  reason  in 
your  ear,  to  this  or  the  other  unfortunate  among 
them,  whose  business  was  destroyed,  or  whose  profes- 
sional career  was  ruined,  or  whose  job  was  ruthlessly 
taken  from  him,  because  he  had  dared  to  think  for 
himself  on  the  subject,  and  had  been  hardy  enough  to 
think  it  aloud,  and  they  will  ask  you,  in  your  turn,  if 
you  expect  them  to  expose  themselves  and  their 
families  to  the  same  fate. 

Ask  our  newspapers  and  our  magazines,  which  dis- 
cuss all  other  matters  with  fearless  courage,  and  throw 
open  their  columns  to  the  thinkers  and  writers  on 
each  side  of  any  public  question,  why  on  this  particular 
question  of  prohibition  their  columns  are  so  voluble 
on  the  one  side,  while  they  maintain  the  silence  of 
death  on  the  other,  and  they  will  tell  you,  though  not 
for  publication,  that  an  organized  attack  in  the  form 
of  a  systematic  boycott  invariably  follows  even  the 


346  The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition. 

printing  of  a  mere  news  item  which  by  any  possible 
construction  can  be  interpreted  as  unfavorable  to  the 
so-called  prohibition  cause.  I  have  no  doubt  that  some 
newspapers,  if  they  deign  to  notice  this  assertion  of 
mine  to-morrow  morning,  will  either  deny  or  ridicule 
it.  But  it  is  true,  nevertheless. 

Ask  the  legislator,  with  whom  you  have  sat  over  a 
friendly  glass  of  beer  to-night,  and  whom  you  see  to- 
morrow casting  his  vote  for  prohibition  in  the  halls  of 
the  Assembly,  to  explain  his  strangely  contradictory 
conduct,  and  he  will  shrug  his  shoulders  and  tell  you 
with  a  wink  of  the  eye  that  he  loves  the  truth,  as 
much  as  you  do,  but  that  he  loves  still  more  that 
which  he  knows  to  be  good  for  his  political  health. 

And  so  on,  all  down  the  line.  The  Vehmgericht  and 
the  Inquisition  of  the  middle  ages  were,  morally  speak- 
ing, but  mere  child's  play  compared  with  the  systematic 
reign  of  terror  inaugurated  by  the  unscrupulous  organ- 
ization that  is  seeking  to  impose  the  farce  of  prohibition 
upon  the  people  of  this  country,  as  a  curtain-raiser 
to  the  real  tragedy  that  is  to  follow  it. 

And  we  are  living  in  the  age  of  so-called  liberty, 
in  what  we  believe  to  be  the  freest  country  on  the 
face  of  the  globe. 

Will  the  American  public  ever  wake  up  to  the  truth? 
Will  the  American  public  ever  realize  that  a  cause 
that  calls  itself  moral,  and  can  only  succeed  by  the 
operation  of  a  system  as  immoral  and  as  corrupt  as 


The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition.  347 

the  worst  system  of  fraud  and  deception  ever  practiced 
upon  a  credulous  people,  is  a  living  lie  ? 

I  say  yes,  the  American  public,  as  well  as  the  thou- 
sands of  blind  and  deluded  men  and  women  who  are 
to-day  unconsciously  contributing  to  the  success  of 
this  monster  fraud  of  our  modern  age,  would  realize  it 
to-morrow  if  the  real  truth  could  be  brought  home 
to  them.  And  the  prohibitionist  by  profession  knows 
it.  That  is  why  he  has  built  and  set  in  motion  this 
huge  machinery  by  which  he  has  succeeded  in  silencing 
men's  tongues  and  preventing  the  true  facts  from 
creeping  into  the  press,  and,  through  the  press,  reach- 
ing the  country  at  large. 

And  what  are  these  true  facts?  If  you  think  the 
statements  I  have  made  to  you  to-night  are  based 
on  mere  conjectures  of  my  own,  let  me  take  you  back 
sixty  odd  years  in  the  history  of  the  prohibition 
movement  and  convict  these  false  exponents  of  the 
modern  uplift  idea  out  of  their  own  mouths.  Let  me 
tell  you,  in  their  own  words,  why  they  opposed  the 
licensing  of  the  sale  of  stimulants  in  this  State,  and 
why  they  insisted,  sixty  years  back,  on  the  incorpora- 
tion of  the  famous  no-license  clause  in  the  constitution 
of  Ohio. 

That  clause  was  added  to  the  constitution  in  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1851,  and  on  page  438 
of  the  official  record  of  the  Ohio  Convention  Debates 
of  that  year  you  will  find  printed  the  following  utter- 


348  The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition. 

ance  by  Mr.  Stanton,  the  delegate  from  Logan  County 
and  the  accredited  leader  of  the  so-called  temperance 
forces  in  the  State,  an  utterance  which  was  accepted 
and  endorsed  as  the  definition  of  the  policy  of  those 
he  represented  by  every  prohibitionist  in  the  Con- 
vention. 

"The  friends  of  temperance  on  every  side,"  he  said, 
"cried  out  for  an  open  field.  They  could  not  contend 
against  that  sanction  of  the  traffic  which  was  con- 
ferred by  a  license  issued  to  a  man  of  a  good  moral 
character.  Take  away  that  shield,  and  the  parties 
are  placed  upon  equal  ground. — The  truth  is,  the 
great  obstacle  to  the  temperance  reform  is  the  respecta- 
bility of  those  who  engage  in  the  traffic. 

"If  every  man  who  pleased  were  allowed  to  buy 
and  sell  spirituous  liquors,  it  would  bring  in  all  sorts 
of  men,  and  the  calling  would  fall  into  disrepute,  and 
become  degraded. 

"So  long  as  places  are  respectable,  men  will  resort 
to  them." 

Think  of  it.  So  long  as  places  are  respectable,  men 
will  resort  to  them.  Therefore,  make  them  disrep- 
utable. So  long  as  men  of  good  moral  character  serve 
the  people  with  the  beverages  they  want,  the  people 
will  continue  to  indulge  in  them.  Therefore  substitute 
immoral  and  dissolute  men  for  these  men  of  good 
character,  and  the  people  will  cease  to  indulge  in 
drink. 


The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition.  349 

My  friends,  it'  is  more  than  sixty  years  since,  de- 
luded by  such  monstrous  arguments  as  these,  the 
voters  of  those  days  blindly  gave  into  the  hands  of 
the  so-called  temperance  advocates  of  their  time  this 
means  of  testing  the  efficacy  of  their  shameful  doctrine 
that  to  foster  and  increase  what  is  evil  in  that  which 
they  aim  to  destroy  is  the  best  means  of  securing  its 
destruction;  and  after  having  forced  a  trade,  which 
they  admitted  to  be  conducted  by  men  of  decent  and 
respectable  habits  and  principles,  to  throw  down  every 
barrier  and  open  itself  up  to  the  irresponsible  and 
unscrupulous  elements  of  the  community,  they  pointed, 
during  the  following  sixty  years,  indignantly  and  dis- 
ingenuously to  the  lawlessness  of  those  very  elements 
of  their  own  creation  as  an  argument  and  a  reason 
for  abolishing  a  trade  which  they  themselves  had  de- 
signedly thrown  open  to  them. 

Such  was  the  morality  of  the  teachers  of  prohibition 
sixty  years  ago,  and  their  descendants  of  to-day  are 
worthy  emulators  of  the  same  kind  of  morality.  All 
honor  to  the  men  and  women  who  sincerely  strive  to 
better  their  fellow-beings,  even  if  their  efforts  be  mis- 
guided. But  shame  everlasting  upon  those  who,  under 
the  mantle  of  piety,  resort  to  every  abomination  known 
to  degraded  and  criminal  man  in  order,  not  to  better 
human  conditions,  but  to  aggravate  them  for  their 
own  selfish  ends. 

Yet  of  such — and  I  say  it  deliberately — are  those 


350  The  Reed  Menace  of  Prohibition. 

who  have  banded  themselves  together  at  this  day  to 
commercialize  the  most  philanthropic  movement  of 
modern  times — the  movement  for  the  spread  of  the  true 
gospel  of  temperance.  Fraud,  misrepresentation,  and 
bold,  bare-faced  falsification  of  public  documents  are 
their  weapons,  and  such  is  the  impudent  sense  of 
security  with  which  their  knowledge  of  men's  fear 
of  their  power  has  filled  them,  that  they  all  but  openly 
glory  in  the  use  of  these  despicable  weapons. 

If  you  have  read  the  daily  press — I  mean  its  adver- 
tising columns — and  if  you  have  followed  the  litera- 
ture which  has  been  issued  by  the  Ohio  Home  Rule 
Association,  and  which  has  been  mainly  confined  to 
exposing  the  almost  incredible  falsehoods  spread  broad- 
cast by  those  to  whom  the  publication  of  the  truth 
means  defeat,  you  will  know  that,  by  the  deliberate 
suppression  of  the  most  important  word  in  the  Home 
Rule  Amendment  as  published  by  them,  these  un- 
scrupulous falsifiers  attempted  to  so  distort  its  lan- 
guage as  to  make  it  appear  to  the  public  as  if  that 
Amendment  would  destroy  all  existing  regulatory  laws 
on  the  statute-books  of  the  State.  The  Home  Rule 
Amendment  reads  in  one  passage,  namely:  "Nor  shall 
any  law  hereafter  be  passed  prohibiting  the  sale,  fur- 
nishing, or  giving  away  of  intoxicating  liquors  through- 
out the  State." 

It  requires  no  legal  mind  to  understand  that  the 
words  "hereafter  be  passed"  mean  that  all  laws  hereto- 


The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition.  351 

fore  passed  and  now  on  the  statute-books  remain  in- 
tact and  unaffected  by  this  amendment.  But  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  want  to  defeat  the  amendment  by 
making  the  people  believe  that  these  very  now  exist- 
ing laws  are  intended  to  be  annulled,  and  so  they 
deliberately  and  dishonestly  leave  out  this  important 
word  "hereafter"  in  the  copy  of  the  amendment  which 
they  send  to  voters.  And  when  their  fraud  is  detected, 
and  they  are  confronted  with  it,  they  claim,  firstly,  that 
the  omission  was  due  to  a  printer's  error,  and,  sec- 
ondly, that  the  word  was  unimportant  anyhow. 

Do  you  remember  the  story  of  the  little  boy  who 
was  reprimanded  for  having  dirty  hands,  and  who 
pleaded,  in  the  first  place,  that  he  had  washed  his 
hands,  and,  in  the  second  place,  that  he  hadn't  had 
any  soap  and  water  to  wash  them  with?  The  Anti- 
Saloon  League  is  the  exact  facsimile  of  that  little 
boy,  and  the  likeness  is  rendered  additionally  striking 
by  the  dirty  hands. 

Let  me  say  this,  my  friends,  and  I  hope  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  will  discover  it  on  November  3.  There 
is  a  "Hereafter"  which  none  can  escape.  Though 
some  men  may  strive  to  expunge  that  word  from 
the  tablets  of  their  minds,  as  a  word  of  no  importance, 
their  falsification  of  those  tablets  will  not  alter  the 
fact  that  this  "Hereafter"  will  one  day  have  to  be 
faced  by  them,  and  whether  it  be  before  the  seat  of 
public  judgment,  or  before  the  seat  of  a  far  higher 


352  The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition. 

tribunal,  I  believe  neither  one  nor  the  other  judge 
will  accept  as  an  excuse  for  the  falsification  of  the 
record  that  it  was  due  to  a  printer's  error. 

A  printer's  error,  forsooth.  Only  think  of  it.  The 
leaders  of  the  Anti- Saloon  League  are  known  as  the 
most  punctilious  sticklers  imaginable  for  precision  in 
spoken  and  written  language;  indeed,  they  pretend 
to  detect  a  so-called  "sleeper"  in  the  mere  omission 
or  introduction  of  a  comma  in  any  proposed  law  having 
for  its  object  the  betterment  of  those  conditions  from 
which  they  derive  their  means  of  livelihood.  Yet  they 
permitted  not  only  this  but  eight  other  "printer's 
errors"  to  creep  into  the  alleged  copy  of  the  Home 
Rule  Amendment,  which  they  sent  to  the  citizens  of 
Ohio  with  a  statement  that  the  amendment  would 
repeal  all  regulatory  laws  now  on  the  statute-books 
of  the  State.  And,  by  the  most  significant  of  coinci- 
dences, every  one  of  these  nine  very  unfortunate  print- 
er's errors,  in  a  document  containing  less  than  ninety 
words,  happened  to  so  color  the  language  of  the 
amendment  as  to  give  the  semblance  of  truth  to 
their  false  statement. 

Does  this  require  any  comment  from  me?  Or,  to 
speak  in  the  common  parlance  of  our  day:  Can  you 
beat  it? 

No  true  man,  indeed  no  sane  man  would  lend  his 
hand  to  the  destruction  of  all  regulatory  laws  on  our 
statute-books,  hence  thousands  who  believe  in  the 


The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition.  353 

principle  of  home  rule,  deceived  by  this  dastardly 
fraud,  are  likely  to  cast  their  vote  against  the  very 
measures  they  favor,  for,  give  a  lie  the  start,  and 
the  truth  will  always  have  difficulty  in  catching  up 
with  it. 

And  this  is  but  one  of  many  lies  and  frauds  that 
have  been  practiced  upon  the  people  of  this  State 
during  the  past  few  weeks.  The  employing  of  men  to 
simulate  drunkenness  and  enter  our  churches  during 
Sunday  service  to  annoy  and  scandalize  the  congre- 
gations is  a  well-worn  trick  of  these  moral  friends  of 
ours.  The  masquerading  of  little  children  of  respec- 
table parents  in  rags  and  tatters,  carrying  banners 
with  inscriptions  intimating  that  they  are  the  offspring 
of  drunken  mothers  and  fathers,  and  imploring  the 
people  to  save  them  from  these  drunken  parents  by 
voting  for  prohibition,  is  another  such  trick.  The 
stationing  of  poorly  clad  and  weeping  women  on  street 
corners,  who,  when  asked  by  the  gathering  crowd 
what  the  cause  of  their  distress  is,  sob  out  the  state- 
ment that  their  husbands  are  drunk  in  a  nearby  saloon, 
(they  don't  give  the  name  of  the  place),  and  that  their 
children  are  at  home  crying  for  bread,  is  another. 
Object  lessons  for  educational  purposes  I  believe  they 
call  them — well,  there  are  a  thousand  and  one  wavs 
of  avoiding  the  use  of  what  we  term  the  short  and 
ugly  word.  But  I  say  to  you  that  if  you  dress  up 
a  common  lie  in  the  silkenest  of  silken  doublet  and 


354  The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition. 

hose,  and  paint  its  villainous  face  with  the  choicest 
of  pious  paints,  and  drench  it  from  head  to  foot  with 
the  sweetest  of  pious  perfumes,  you  won't  alter  the 
fact  that  it  is  a  common  lie,  whose  evil  features  no 
paint  can  conceal,  and  whose  evil  stench  no  perfume 
can  cover.  This  is  true  of  the  ordinary,  everyday 
lie,  and  it  is  equally  true  of  that  master-lie  of  all 
modern  lies:  prohibition. 

It  is  the  defeat  of  that  lie,  and  the  confounding  of 
those  who  have  given  it  the  start  in  this  great  cam- 
paign, which  is  the  issue  that  confronts  you  at  the 
polls  next  Tuesday.  And  mark  this,  my  friends, 
for  it  will  have  a  great  bearing  upon  the  result  of  the 
ballot  on  November  third.  It  is  not  upon  our  mere 
love  of  the  truth,  but  upon  the  courage  we  show  in 
defending  it,  that  the  triumph  of  the  truth  depends. 
Enthusiasm  for  a  cause  is  a  great  thing,  but  mere  en- 
thusiasm never  won  a  battle.  It  is  votes,  not  senti- 
ments, that  will  decide  the  battle  of  the  ballot  at 
Tuesday's  polls,  and  in  this  connection  I  am  going 
to  confide  to  you  a  great  secret,  and  ask  you,  in  your 
turn,  to  communicate  that  secret  confidentially  to  every 
one  of  your  friends,  so  that  each  one  of  these  may  act 
upon  it  and  cause  each  of  his  friends  to  do  likewise. 
Tell  it  in  particular  to  those  of  your  friends  who  love 
their  ease  and  comfort,  and  are  rather  inclined  to 
let  others  do  for  them  what  they  should  do  for  them- 
selves. There  are  tens  of  thousands  of  these  in  our 


The  Real  Menace  of  Prohibition.  355 

ranks,  and  I  have  reliable  information  that  they  are 
already  preparing  at  home  for  an  elaborate  celebration 
of  the  victory  you  and  others  are  going  to  win  for 
them  next  Tuesday.  Tell  them  that  this  proposed 
celebration  of  theirs  is  by  no  means  the  sure  thing 
they  think  it  is,  because  the  fact  is  that  the  election 
is  not  yet  cinched;  because  the  fact  is — and  this  is  the 
secret  I  want  to  whisper  to  you — that  we  require  just 
one  more  vote  to  win. 

Just  one  more  vote,  mark.  It  seems  a  little  thing, 
doesn't  it?  But  I  want  you  to  bear  it  in  mind,  to 
the  exclusion  of  everything  else,  from  now  until  the 
polls  close  on  November  3.  We  require  just  one  more 
vote  to  win.  Trifling  as  it  may  appear,  believe  me 
that  this  whole  great  election  hangs  upon  this  one 
vote,  and  if  each  one  of  you  will  make  each  one  of 
your  stay-at-home  friends  realize  that  this  one  vote 
is  his  vote,  and  no  other's,  I  promise  you  that  this 
one  vote  will  be  the  biggest  of  its  kind  ever  cast  at 
any  election  held  in  this  State. 


When  the  Majority  is  King 

(From  the  American  Leader,  October  8  and  22,  1914.) 

[EDITORIAL  NOTE. — In  our  last  issue  we  referred  editorially  to 
Mr.  Andreae's  noteworthy  address,  delivered  at  Cleveland  on  the 
22d  of  July,  on  the  subject,  "The  Need  of  a  National  Liberty  Day/' 
and  we  spoke  of  his  energy  in  defending  the  cause  of  "Personal 
Liberty"  wherever  he  could  strike  a  telling  blow.  We  recalled  to 
our  readers'  minds  also  the  masterful  address  on  the  same  subject 
delivered  before  the  American  Association  of  Foreign-Language 
Newspapers,  Inc.,  at  its  last  annual  banquet  in  New  York,  on  the 
evening  of  February  7th.  This  address,  which  created  a  profound 
impression  among  thinking  men  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  was 
printed  in  our  issue  of  February  12th.  In  our  issue  of  June  llth 
we  published  a  number  of  opinions  of  that  address  from  the  press 
and  from  prominent  educators,  legislators  and  publicists.  The  article 
of  which  we  here  print  the  first  part  is  a  fitting  and  clinching 
completion  of  that  notable  address.] 

As  long  as  human  society  has  existed,  the  opinions 
of  men  regarding  that  which  is  most  vitally  essential 
to  human  morals  and  human  happiness  have  probably 
differed.  Perhaps  fortunately  so,  for  divergence  of 
views  leads  to  discussion  and  exchange  of  thought, 
and  there  lies  the  root  of  all  human  progress.  The 
social  fabric  we  live  in  to-day  has  not  been  built  up 
by  the  thought,  the  opinions,  or  the  achievements  of 
one  man,  one  set  of  men,  or  one  race  of  men.  It  is 
the  result  of  the  compromise  between  many  human 
minds  and  many  human  views,  and  the  possibility 


When  the  Majority  Is  King.  357 

of  such  compromise  is  conditioned  upon  two  essentials, 
viz.:  respect  for  the  opinion  of  our  neighbor,  however 
fundamentally  that  opinion  may  differ  from  our  own, 
and  the  recognition,  now  universally  conceded,  of  the 
equal  rights  of  all  men. 

In  these  modern  days,  when  the  principle  of  the 
rule  of  the  majority  is  recognized  throughout  the 
civilized  world  as  the  most  equitable,  if  not  the  most 
perfect  form  of  government,  it  is  well  to  bear  this 
fact  in  mind.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that, 
unless  this  rule  of  the  majority  were  subject  to  certain 
well-defined  limitations,  it  would  prove  as  tyrannous 
in  principle  and  as  destructive  of  human  rights  and 
human  happiness  as  that  most  despotic  form  of  ancient 
government  which  is  based  on  the  so-called  divine 
right  of  kings.  Yet  those  very  limitations,  so  wisely 
imposed  upon  our  modern  form  of  government  by  our 
forefathers,  are  to-day  in  danger  of  being  all  but 
totally  removed  at  the  instance  of  men  who  are 
putting  forth  the  strangely  delusive  doctrine  that  the 
needs  of  human  society  demand  the  sacrifice  of  indi- 
vidual human  liberty. 

Startling  as  the  assertion  may  appear,  it  is  none 
the  less  true  that  the  acceptance  of  this  doctrine  would 
mean  the  first  step  towards  a  general  relapse  of  man- 
kind into  the  state  of  barbarism  from  which  it  has 
emerged.  The  doctrine  is  based,  in  fact,  upon  an 
obviously  false  conclusion  regarding  the  true  evolu- 


358  When  the  Majority  Is  King. 

tion  of  human  society;  for  society  was  manifestly  not 
formed  to  restrict  or  curtail  individual  liberty,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  to  establish  and  protect  it. 

The  notion  of  some  men  that  the  life  of  the  savage 
is  an  example  of  perfect  and  unrestricted  freedom,  is 
a  complete  fallacy,  as  a  mere  glance  at  man  in  his 
primitive  state  will  prove.  The  savage  human  has 
not  even  the  most  elementary  sense  of  individual  lib- 
erty. He  has  only  one  conception  of  human  right, 
namely,  that  of  superior  might.  Hence,  where  the 
savage  state  prevails,  the  strong  enslaves  the  weak, 
only  to  be  himself  enslaved  by  the  stronger,  until  the 
strongest  establishes  his  paramount  power  and  makes 
his  individual  will  the  supreme  law  for  all. 

This  condition  is  not  only  irreconcilable  with  the 
exercise  of  individual  liberty,  but  is  correspondingly 
incompatible  with  any  sense  of  that  which  we  call 
criminal,  on  the  part  of  those  who  live  in  it.  The 
human  mind,  indeed,  has  developed  only  one  concep- 
tion of  crime,  namely,  the  violation  of  human  right, 
and  the  supreme  right  of  man  is  liberty.  Conse- 
quently, the  savage,  knowing  no  liberty,  knows  no 
crime.  It  is  true,  he  kills,  burns,  and  robs,  whenever 
opportunity  offers.  But  these  acts  are  not  the  exercise 
of  individual  liberty,  because  they  are  committed  as  a 
matter  of  might,  not  of  right.  And,  inversely,  when 
the  consensus  of  human  opinion  constitutes  such  acts 
crimes,  it  is  not  because  they  have  come  to  be  regarded 


When  the  Majority  Is  King.  359 

as  an  undue  exercise  of  individual  liberty,  which  re- 
quires restraining,  but  because  they  are  recognized  as  an 
undue  violation  of  individual  right,  and  as  such  to  be 
suppressed. 

There  is  nothing  strange  in  all  this.  The  history  of 
human  progress  is  the  evolution  of  the  sense  of  indi- 
vidual human  right.  The  principle  underlying  our 
common  law,  as  stripped  of  its  obsolete  feudal  and 
other  medieval  excrescenses,  is  the  protection  of  this 
right  of  the  individual,  not  its  restriction  for  some 
fancied  benefit  to  accrue  thereby  to  the  community. 
The  individual  at  no  time  claimed  the  right,  either 
expressed  or  implied,  to  murder,  burn,  or  steal.  When 
he  committed  these  acts,  he  did  so  relying  purely  upon 
his  individual  ability  to  defy  the  attempt  at  vengeance 
or  reprisal  on  the  part  of  those  whom  such  acts  injured. 
When  law,  therefore,  constituted  these  acts  crimes,  it 
was  not  because  a  majority  of  men  agreed  to  forego  a 
right  to  murder,  rob,  or  burn,  and  forced  an  unwilling 
minority  to  follow  their  example,  but  because  all  men 
demanded  the  right  of  protection  against  murder,  rob- 
bery and  arson,  and  such  protection  was  only  rendered 
possible  by  each,  without  exception,  extending  it  to  the 
other. 

There  is  no  record  in  the  history  of  mankind  which 
would  indicate  that  these  laws  were  established  other- 
wise than  by  the  common  consent  of  all  men,  nor  does 
their  occasional  violation  at  this  advanced  stage  of 


860  When  the  Majority  Is  King. 

our  civilization  imply  that  there  is  a  single  individual 
among  us  who  regards  them  as  an  infringement  of  his 
liberty  of  action.  Even  the  murderer,  the  thief,  and 
the  incendiary  themselves  acknowledge  their  necessity, 
and  for  obviously  selfish  reasons. 

Law,  then,  if  it  conforms  to  our  established  notion 
of  the  equal  rights  of  men,  expresses,  not  "a  rule  of 
action  which  is  prescribed  by  some  superior,  and 
which  the  inferior  is  bound  to  obey"  (Blackstone), 
but  essentially  a  contract,  a  compact  for  mutual  pro- 
tection between  individuals,  and  its  force  and  effect- 
iveness are  conditioned  upon  the  completeness  of  the 
mutual  character  of  that  protection.  This  conception 
of  law  indeed  is  unconsciously  so  ingrained  in  the 
human  mind  that  it  has  become  part  of  our  language 
itself.  We  do  not  say:  "all  men  are  subject  to  the 
equal  restriction  or  constraint  of  the  law."  We  say: 
"all  men  are  entitled  to  the  equal  protection  of  the 
law."  And  the  distinction  is  significant  as  showing 
that  men  intuitively  feel  that  the  purpose  of  law  is  to 
protect  individual  right,  not  to  restrict  or  annul  it. 
It  would  be,  and  is,  indeed,  impossible  for  men  to 
agree  upon  constraint  or  annulment  of  right,  but  all 
can  agree  upon  its  protection.  Hence  laws  which  force 
protection  upon  men  who  do  not  want  it  become  purely 
restrictive,  and  as  such  usually  fail,  because  the  com- 
pact underlying  them  is  not  based  upon  a  mutual 
consideration;  in  other  words,  because  they  exact  the 


When  the  Majority  Is  King.  361 

performance  of  an  obligation  upon  which  one  party 
insists  without  giving  a  consideration  which  the  other 
party  desires. 

When  some  men,  therefore,  speak  of  the  " Social 
Contract"  as  an  instrument  by  virtue  of  which  the 
individual  yields  up  certain  liberties  in  consideration 
of  certain  benefits  he  -receives  from  the  community  he 
lives  in,  they  do  not  state  the  case  accurately. 

Men  had  no  liberties  before  the  community  was 
formed  to  establish  and  protect  them.  The  savage, 
for  instance,  is  not  free  to  roam  at  large,  as  so  many 
suppose.  He  can  only  do  so  if  his  stronger  fellow- 
savage  permits  him.  Our  social  conception  of  liberty 
is  that  all  men,  weak  or  strong,  have  equal  rights,  which 
they  agree,  for  a  common  selfish  reason,  to  guarantee  to 
each  other.  Hence,  the  community ,» which  is  merely  an 
individual  many  times  multiplied,  has  no  benefit  what- 
ever to  bestow  apart  from  the  personal  liberty  of  that 
individual,  and,  since  that  liberty  is  inviolate,  the  com- 
munity cannot  take  it  from  one  and  give  it  to  others, 
nor  deny  it  to  some  for  the  alleged  good  of  all,  with- 
out defeating  the  very  end  for  which  the  community 
was  established. 

The  guaranty  of  equal  rights  simply  involves  the 
obligation  of  equal  duties  to  secure  those  rights,  and  the 
community  has  been  created  as  the  instrument  through 
which  both  are  carried  out.  It  has  no  right,  nor  should 
it  exercise  the  power,  to  alter  either  the  guaranty  or 


362  When  the  Majority  Is  King. 

the  obligation,  for  the  one  is  the  perfect  complement  of 
the  other.  In  other  words,  the  obligation  to  respect  my 
neighbor's  rights  implies  in  no  sense  a  restriction  of  my 
own.  On  the  contrary,  if  I  commit  an  act  which  infringes 
the  rights  of  my  neighbor,  I  am  not  excercising  my  own 
rights,  but  violating  or  jeopardizing  them,  because  my 
rights  and  my  neighbor's  are  coextensive  and  inter- 
dependent. 

Let  me  illustrate. 

The  acquisition  of  wealth  is  an  exercise  of  individual 
right,  because  it  neither  interferes  with  nor  abridges  the 
equal  rights  of  all  men  to  acquire  wealth.  The  use  of 
wealth,  however,  to  deprive  other  men  of  the  equal 
facilities  to  acquire  it  is  an  exercise 'of  individual  might, 
which  is  a  violation  of  right,  and,  therefore,  properly 
becomes  a  matter  of  community  control. 

Again,  I  claim  the  individual  right  to  speed  my 
automobile  to  the  bent  of  my  foolish  desire.  I  shall 
exercise  that  right  with  perfect  propriety,  as  long  as  I 
do  so  on  my  own  premises.  But  if  I  exceed  the  speed 
limit  on  the  public  thoroughfare,  I  interfere  with  the 
right  of  my  neighbor  to  protection  of  life  and  limb,  and 
since  I  claim  the  same  right  as  he,  I  cannot  violate  his 
right  to  that  protection  without  at  the  same  time  for- 
feiting mine.  I  want  no  protection  against  my  own 
folly,  nor  am  I  willing,  as  a  matter  of  equity,  to  con- 
cede to  my  neighbor  the  right  to  be  protected  at  my 
expense  against  his  folly.  It  is  only  in  so  far  as  his 


When  the  Majority  Is  King.  363 

folly  affects  me  and  my  folly  affects  him  that  he  and  I 
are  equally  interested  and  conclude  to  enter  into  an 
agreement  for  mutual  protection,  which  we  call  law. 

This  manifestly  does  not  involve  the  abrogation  or 
sacrifice  of  personal  right,  but  on  the  contrary,  it 
involves  its  solemn  recognition,  and  the  community  is 
there  to  see  that  the  contract  to  mutually  recognize  it 
is  duly  fulfilled  by  all  parties  to  it. 

The  fault,  then,  which  is  at  the  root  of  all  purely 
restrictive  laws  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  are  enacted 
as  a  result,  not  of  a  common  desire  for  protection  on 
the  part  of  all  men,  but  of  a  desire  on  the  part  of  one 
class  of  men  to  protect  another  class  that  neither  desires 
nor  appreciates  the  protection.  The  question  whether 
that  protection  may  be  morally,  or  otherwise,  good  for 
them  or  not,  has  no  bearing  upon  the  matter.  However 
laudable  or  desirable  the  object  of  a  law  may  appear, 
its  primary  requisite  is  effectiveness,  and  that  effective- 
ness depends  upon  the  mutual  consent  of  those  whose 
actions  it  is  to  control.  Autocratic  rulers  have  learned 
this  to  their  cost,  and  the  lesson  which  kings  have  learned 
in  the  past  is  in  store  for  majorities  in  the  future,  if 
they  transgress  the  limits  with  which  nature  has  cir- 
cumscribed their  power.  For  nature  is  superior  to  law, 
and  has  never  yet  failed  to  demonstrate  its  superiority. 

Our  latter-day  prohibitionists  afford  the  strongest 
proof  that  this  fact  is  recognized,  even  by  those  who 
are  to-day  promulgating  the  doctrine  that  individual 


364  When  the  Majority  Is  King. 

.man  must  yield  up  what  we  call  his  personal  liberty 
for  the  benefit  of  what  a  certain  class  of  men — say,  a 
majority — consider  to  be  the  need  of  the  community  at 
large.  The  prohibitionist  believes — no  doubt  sincerely 
—that  the  use  of  alcoholic  drink  is  the  root  of  all  human 
evil.  This  being  his  creed,  the  obviously  honest  way  to 
endeavor  to  remedy  the  evil  would  be  to  forbid  the  use 
of  such  beverages,  and  punish  all  who  have  them  in 
their  possession.  But  the  prohibitionist  knows  too  well 
that  the  millions  who  assert  the  right  to  indulge  in 
stimulants,  because  they  see  in  that  indulgence  no  inter- 
ference on  their  part  with  the  rights  of  any  other  man, 
would  rise  as  one  multitude  in  protest  against  such  a 
law.  So  the  prohibitionist  resorts  to  a  subterfuge, 
and,  while  expressly  admitting  the  right  of  men  to 
drink,  deprives  them  of  the  opportunity  to  exercise  that 
right  by  forbidding  the  manufacture,  sale  and  distri- 
bution of  drink. 

But  is  there  any  difference  between  destroying  the 
opportunity  to  exercise  a  right  and  destroying  that 
right  itself?  To  confine  a  man  in  a  vacuum  and  say 
that  you  are  not  taking  from  him  the  right  to  breathe, 
is  an  absurdity.  Yet  it  would  be  no  different  from  con- 
fining a  man  in  a  place  where  he  can  obtain  no  drink 
and  saying  to  him  that  you  are  not  depriving  him  of 
the  right  to  drink. 

This  is  the  fatal  insincerity  of  the  prohibitionist,  and 
it  is  here  where  the  majority  that  does  his  bidding  over- 


When  the  Majority  Is  King.  365 

steps  the  limits  with  which  nature  has  circumscribed  its 
power,  and  the  result  is,  as  in  all  such  cases,  confusion, 
resentment  and  open  defiance  of  the  law. 

It  may  be  freely  admitted  that  some  laws  directly 
restricting  the  right  of  the  individual  have  been  enacted 
with  some  measure  of  permanent  success,  but  such  laws 
have  invariably  related  to  rights  the  exercise  of  which 
the  individual  considered  too  unimportant  to  insist  upon, 
and  they  were  therefore  generally  tolerated,  or  accepted 
without  resistance.  But  their  success  does  not  make 
them  right.  On  the  contrary,  the  fact  that  the  liberty 
they  restrict  is  considered  not  worth  while  contending 
for  constitutes  their  peculiar  danger,  inasmuch  as  they 
establish  a  precedent  for  the  enactment  of  other  laws 
affecting  liberties  far  more  deeply  and  generally 
cherished. 

Nowhere  has  this  fact  been  more  clearly  stated  than  in 
the  following  words  of  our  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence: "All  experience  hath  shown  that  mankind  are 
more  disposed  to  suffer  while  evils  are  suff erable  than 
to  right  themselves  by  abolishing  the  forms  to  which 
they  are  accustomed."  Needless  to  say,  the  evils  here 
referred  to  are  the  evils  of  tyrannical  government. 

I  know  of  no  statute  which  more  strikingly  illustrates 
in  itself,  both  the  effectiveness  of  law  based  upon  com- 
mon consent  and  the  ineffectiveness  of  law  based  upon 
the  mere  arbitrary  ruling  of  a  majority  of  men,  than 
that  which  is  known  as  the  Sunday  law  in  this  country. 


366  When  the  Majority  Is  King. 

In  so  far,  namely,  as  this  statute  establishes  Sunday 
as  a  day  of  rest,  it  is  universally  accepted,  because 
all  men  realize  the  need  of  release  from  labor  on  one 
day  in  the  week,  and  unless  each  would  concede  to  the 
other  the  opportunity  to  rest  on  that  day,  none  could 
safely  exercise  the  right  to  do  so.  In  other  words, 
the  great  majority  of  men  only  transact  business  on 
Sunday  because  they  are  forced  to  do  so  by  their  com- 
petitive fellow-business  men.  All,  however,  includ- 
ing the  few  men  whose  mere  greed  of  gain  causes  them 
to  labor  on  Sunday,  experience  the  need  of  a  respite 
oh  one  day  in  the  week;  hence  the  agreement,  not  to 
take  from  each  other  the  right  to  open  their  place  of 
business  on  the  Lord's  day,  but  to  protect  for  each 
other  the  right  to  rest  on  that  day. 

Now,  rest  implies  recreation,  and  there  is  where  the 
Sunday  statute  produces  the  inevitable  clash,  for, 
wherever  it  prevents  men  from  indulging  in  the  recrea- 
tion they  desire  and  consider  themselves  entitled  to,  it 
acts  not  as  a  concession  but  as  a  deprival  of  right,  and 
in  consequence  becomes  largely  inoperative.  Men  real- 
ize, in  short,  that  such  parts  of  the  law  which  forbid, 
for  instance,  the  playing  of  games,  or  the  opening*  of 
houses  of  amusement,  public  museums  and  places  of 
public  resort  on  Sunday,  have  not  the  object  of  pre- 
serving the  right  of  the  individual  to  rest,  but  aim  to 
force  men  generally  to  observe  the  Sabbath  according 
to  the  religious  views  and  conceptions  of  a  certain  sec- 


When  the  Majority  Is  King.  367 

tion  of  the  Christian  church,  and  the  law  therefore 
becomes  ineffective,  except  in  those  localities  where  the 
followers  of  these  particular  religious  denominations 
are  in  a  sufficiently  large  majority  to  coerce  the  rest 
of  the  community  into  obeying  it. 

This  is  exactly  the  rule  by  might,  and  not  by  right, 
which  is  peculiar  to  man  in  his  savage  state,  a  condi- 
tion from  which  he  has  been  steadily  endeavoring  to 
rise,  and  into  which  a  certain  element  of  modern  society 
is  to-day — unwittingly,  no  doubt — endeavoring  to 
return  him.  Nor  does  it  matter  whether  such  might 
is  exercised  by  one  man,  as,  for  instance,  an  autocratic 
ruler,  or  by  a  body  of  men,  as,  for  instance,  a  majority. 
It  is  equally  subversive  of  human  rights,  and  therefore 
productive  of  evil.  Men  suffered  from  it  under  one-man 
rule,  largely  because  they  did  not  realize  their  power 
to  resist  it.  Men  suffer  from  it  under  majority  rule, 
either  because  they  are  too  indolent  or  indifferent  to 
use  the  power  they  possess  to  destroy  it,  or  because 
they  are  too  ignorant  to  understand  the  principles 
which  it  violates,  and  which  it  is  every  man's  duty,  in 
his  own  interest  and  that  of  his  fellows,  to  maintain 
and  defend. 

There  is,  in  fact,  no  more  divine  right  vested  in  major- 
ities than  there  is  vested  in  kings,  and  those  who  assert 
that  the  complex  character  which  our  modern  society  has 
assumed  demands  a  readjustment  of  our  notions  of  indi- 
vidual liberty  merely  prove  their  utter  misconception 


368  When  the  Majority  Is  King. 

of  the  fundamental  principle  from  which  human  society 
took  its  inception,  and  which  alone  has  made  its  advance 
to  its  present  stage  possible.  It  therefore  behooves  men 
who  aspire  to  be  our  law  givers,  as  well  as  those  who  elect 
them,  to  constantly  bear  in  mind  that  our  present-day 
government  cannot,  with  due  deference  to  this  funda- 
mental principle,  the  equal  rights  of  all  men,  properly 
concern  itself  with  anything  but  the  detailed  application 
of  that  principle  to  the  complex  conditions  of  modern 
society.  Wherever  it  seeks  to  accomplish  more  than 
this,  it  either  attempts  to  alter,  or  it  violates,  that  prin- 
ciple, with  the  consequence  that  the  laws  it  enacts 
become  laws  based  upon  might,  not  right,  and  as  such 
either  tyrannous  or  nugatory.  For  might  is  evanescent, 
while  right  endures  forever. 

If  men  would  stop  to  consider  why  it  is  that  human 
beings  only  found  it  possible  in  a  corporate  capacity 
to  secure  and  protect  individual  liberty,  they  would 
discover  that  the  reason  is  as  transparently  evident  to- 
day as  it  was  at  the  very  beginning  of  human  society. 
The  fact  is,  humiliating  as  the  admission  may  be,  that 
we  are  individually  by  no  means  so  far  removed  from 
the  savage  state  as  some  of  us  are  led  to  believe.  Indi- 
vidual man,  even  at  this  day,  let  his  station  be  ever  so 
humble,  is  by  instinct  a  tyrant,  with  little  true  concep- 
tion of  right,  excepting  as  it  pertains  to  himself.  It  is 
only  when  he  has  been  educated  to  see  that  his  own 
rights  are  co-extensive  with,  and1  their  security  and 


When  the  Majority  Is  King.  369 

maintenance  interdependent  upon,  the  rights  of  his 
fellow-man;  in  other  words,  that  the  preservation  of 
his  own  liberty  is  conditioned^  upon  his  unqualified 
recognition  of  the  equal  liberty  of  all  men,  that  his 
selfish,  tyrannical  instinct  yields  to  his  equally  selfish 
sense  of  '  expediency,  and  makes  way  for  the  spirit  of 
compromise,  which  results  in  the  agreement  for  the 
mutual  protection  of  individual  right  that  finds  its 
expression  in  human  law. 

There  was  never  a  time  when  the  realization  of  this 
fact  by  men  of  all  ranks  and  grades  was  of  such 
supreme  importance  as  it  is  in  this  present  era  of  our 
so-called  enlightenment  and  complex  social  conditions. 


When  a  Minority  is  the  People 

(From  the  American  Leader,  Nov.  12  and  28,  1914.) 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  while  majority  rule 
seems  to  us  to  be  the  form  of  government  most  repre- 
sentative of  the  people,  the  true  fact  is  that  the  voice 
of  the  people  invariably  speaks  through  the  minority. 

The  reason  is  very  simple.  Experience  has  taught 
us  that  the  liberty  of  the  individual  is  contingent  upon 
the  equal  liberty  of  all  men.  Government,  however,  on 
whatever  basis  it  may  be  established,  implies  a  ruling 
body  and  a  body  ruled.  No  matter  how  the  ruling 
body  is  constituted,  whether  it  be  permanent  or  tempo- 
rary, hereditary  or  elective,  the  function  of  government 
is  inseparable  from  the  exercise  of  power,  and  power 
is  the  antithesis  of  freedom.  The  instability  of  party 
rule,  which  is  the  characteristic  feature  of  our  repub- 
lican form  of  goverment,  is  traceable  primarily  to  this 
very  antithesis.  The  minority  of  to-day  becomes  the 
majority  of  to-morrow,  only,  in  its  turn,  to  hear  the 
voice  of  the  people  speak  through  another  minority  and 
oppose  the  power  through  which  the  newly  established 
majority  proceeds  to  impose  its  rule  upon  the  com- 
munity at  large.  Thus  the  same  course  is  run  over  and 


When  a  Minority  Is  the  People.  371 

over  again,  and  the  ruling  body  and  the  body  ruled  are 
in  constant  conflict  and  opposition. 

It  would  seem,  then,  as  if  there  were  a  decree  of 
nature  against  any  permanency  or  stability  in  human 
affairs.  Yet  this  is  not  so.  It  is  through  the  very  con- 
flict between  the  body  ruling  and  the  body  ruled  that 
we  have  obtained  some  of  the  best  results  in  our  human 
government.  In  England,  for  instance,  where  the 
minority  is  known  in  parliamentary  language  as  the 
opposition,  it  has  become  a  common  saying  that  the 
surest  guaranty  of  good  government  lies  in  the  strength 
of  the  opposition. 

Whether  this  be  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  all 
substantial  progress  in  representative  government  has 
been  marked  by  the  gradual  development  of  a  minor- 
ity into  a  majority.  In  our  imperfect  and  somewhat 
blundering  fashion,  therefore,  we  manage,  after  all,  to 
evolve  some  order  out  of  chaos,  and  the  saying  that 
the  people  rule,  while  in  some  respects  a  mere  figure 
of  speech,  is  not  so  in  all  respects.  The  people  do  rule 
—ultimately,  and  the  reality  of  this  rule  of  the  people 
is  best  exemplified  by  the  fact  that  only  those  laws 
prove  to  be  stable  and  permanent  which  have  the  ap- 
proval and  the  consent  of  all  men. 

This  is  true,  no  matter  whether  the  governing  power 
be  exercised  by  one  man  or  by  many.  The  difference, 
in  fact,  in  so  far  as  it  bears  upon  the  actual  individual, 
is  not  as  great  as  some  believe.  Government,  even 


372  When  a  Minority  Is  the  People. 

though  established  by  a  majority,  must  necessarily  pass 
into  the  hands  of  a  few  men,  with  all  the  power  which 
the  function  of  government  implies.  In  our  country, 
it  is  this  majority  which  elects  the  legislative  and  exec- 
utive bodies,  and  vests  in  them  the  authority  to 
enact  and  enforce  laws.  It  also,  in  many  cases,  elects 
(unfortunately)  the  judges,  among  whose  functions 
is  that  of  deciding  whether  such  laws  as  the  governing 
body  enacts  conform  to  the  fundamental  principles  of 
individual  human  right  which  are  embodied  in  our 
Constitution,  and  are  known  as  organic  laws.  These 
organic  laws  represent  presumptively  the  definitely 
ascertained  will  of  all  the  people,  and  for  that  reason 
have  been  placed  beyond  the  power  of  a  mere  majority 
to  abrogate  or  alter. 

The  system,  then,  on  the  face  of  it,  seems  perfect. 
Yet  is  it  so  very  different  from  what  we  call  monarchic 
institutions?  The  rights  of  the  people,  though  possibly 
not  quite  the  same,  are  as  real  and  in  some  cases  as  well 
defined  under  the  rule  of  a  king  as  they  are  under  the 
rule  of  a  majority,  and  they  are  as  liable  to  infringe- 
ment in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  only  the  people 
at  large  do  not  realize  it.  The  idea  of  majority  rule, 
indeed,  seems  to  possess  some  magic  charm  which 
disarms  all  suspicion  of  tyranny,  and  blinds  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  eternal  truth  that  only  by  the  most  jealous 
vigilance  can  the  liberty  of  man  be  protected  against 
the  power  of  man. 


When  a  Minority  Is  the  People.  373 

How  many  of  us,  who  sing  blithely  of  the  land  of 
the  free,  do  not  realize  that  it  is  not  because  our  country 
is  subject  to  the  rule  of  a  majority  that  its  citizens 
are,  or  ought  to  be,  free,  but  because  the  rule  of  the 
majority  is  subject  to  the  rights  of  the  minority.  That 
these  rights  of  the  minority  happen  to  be  the  rights  of 
the  whole  people  renders  it  all  the  more  important  for 
us  not  to  allow  ourselves  to  be  lulled  into  the  belief 
that  no  effort  on  our  part  is  required  to  secure  them 
against  encroachment. 

If  it  had  not  been  considered  within  the  range  of 
possibility,  for  instance,  that  the  right  of  all  men  to 
life,  liberty  and  property  might  one  day  be  contested 
by  a  perverse  majority  of  citizens,  there  would  have 
been  no  reason  to  safeguard  that  right  so  carefully  in 
the  Constitution  of  our  country.  That  Constitution, 
in  fact,  while  purporting  to  establish  the  inalienable 
rights  of  the  whole  people,  in  effect  merely  protects 
the  rights  of  the  minority  of  the  people  against  the 
aggression  of  the  ruling  majority,  and  the  very  fact 
that  it  does  so  warrants  us  in  saying  that  a  minority 
whom  a  ruling  majority  of  citizens  attempts  to  deprive 
of  such  established  rights  (no  matter  whether  the  major- 
ity deprives  itself  of  those  rights  at  the  same  time ) ,  is 
as  justly  termed  the  people  as  if  it  were  a  whole  nation 
rising  against  an  oppressive  ruler  calling  himself  king. 
For,  in  an  absolute  monarchy  the  whole  people  are  the 
minority,  while  the  king  is  the  majority.  The  only  ap- 


374  When  a  Minority  Is  the  People. 

parent  difference,  in  this  particular,  between  representa- 
tive and  monarchical  government  is  that  in  the  former 
case  the  ruling  body  is  subject  to  dismissal  by  the  people, 
and  in  the  latter  case  the  ruler  is  not.  But  even  this 
difference,  on  closer  inspection,  proves  to  be  purely 
theoretical,  for  the  reason  that,  since  representative 
government  is  established  by  a  majority,  it  is  only 
by  a  majority  that  it  can  be  dismissed,  and  a  majority 
is  manifestly  no  more  likely  of  its  own  accord  to  relin- 
quish its  power  than  a  king  is  to  relinquish  his. 

It  is  in  all  cases,  then,  the  minority  that  must  of 
necessity  act  as  the  protector  of  the  fundamental  rights 
accorded  to  the  whole  people,  and  it  is  therefore  prop- 
erly representative  of  the  whole  people  whenever  it 
stands  in  defense  of  those  rights.  Nor  is  there  any 
exaggeration  in  the  assumption  that,  in  our  enlightened 
age,  a  minority  may  be  called  upon,  and  ought,  to  take 
such  a  stand.  Man,  in  all  ages,  has  been  subject  to 
fitful  impulses,  which  have  caused  him  periodically  to 
deviate  from  the  course  marked  out  for  him  by  the 
accumulated  experience  of  generations  and  seek  a  short- 
cut, by  way  of  law,  to  the  final  goal  he  is  destined  to 
reach,  if  at  all,  by  education.  That  we  are  to-day  in  the 
midst  of  such  a  period  is  scarcely  to  be  doubted.  In  fact, 
the  particular  impulse  which  is  characteristic  of  our  pres- 
ent age,  and  which,  fed  by  certain  aggressive  though 
well-meaning  reformers,  has  seized  large  numbers  of  the 
community  with  almost  epidemic  force,  is  nothing  less 


When  a  Minority  Is  the  People.  375 

than  to  subvert  the  entire  foundation  upon  which  we 
have  so  far  erected  our  social  fabric,  by  assuming  that 
human  society  was  not  created  for  the  benefit  of  indi- 
vidual man,  but  that  individual  man  was  created  for 
the  benefit  of  human  society.  Which  means,  of  course, 
what  many  of  those  who  unreflectingly  subscribe  to  this 
doctrine  do  not  fully  realize,  that  individual  man  has  no 
rights  inherent  in  him  by  nature,  but  only  such  rights 
as  society,  ruled  by  a  majority,  may  concede  to  him. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enter  into  an  academic  discus- 
sion of  the  question  which  of  the  two  propositions  is 
theoretically  correct.  The  theory  of  government,  as 
advanced  by  some  men  (though  they  be  a  majority), 
is  one  thing,  its  practice,  as  determined  by  all  men,  is 
another,  and,  whether  fortunately  or  unfortunately,  it 
is  this  other  upon  which  the  success  of  government  is 
conditioned. 

If  men  were  created  equal,  as  our  Declaration  of 
Independence  has  it,  there  would  be  no  problem  of 
government  to  confront  us,  for  majorities  and  minorities 
would  be  inconceivable.  But  they  are  not.  Men  are 
merely  assumed  by  us  for  the  purposes  of  government  to 
be  created  with  equal  rights,  which  means,  if  it  means 
anything,  that  they  have  the  inalienable  right  to  their 
own  folly  and  their  own  wisdom,  and  the  equally 
inalienable  right  to  protection  against  the  folly  and  the 
wisdom  of  their  neighbor. 

It  is  idle  to  pretend  that  this  is  a  mere  theory.    It  is 


376  When  a  Minority  Is  the  People. 

the  result  of  the  stern  practical  experience  of  ages, 
which  has  proved  that  all  the  laws  of  the  world,  backed 
by  all  the  power  of  governmental  authority,  cannot  make 
foolish  men  wise  or  wise  men  foolish.  The  fool  of  to- 
day may  become  the  sage  of  to-morrow, — and  vice 
versa,  but  not  by  social  or  governmental  decree.  Wis- 
dom is  not  imparted  by  law,  nor  can  folly  be  corrected 
by  it. 

This  truth  is  as  old  as  the  hills,  and  perhaps  for  that 
reason,  like  most  very  ancient  truths,  more  apt  to  be 
lost  sight  of  than  are  others  far  less  obvious.  But 
though  some  of  us  may  temporarily  overlook  or  disre- 
gard it  in  our  eagerness  to  advance  our  own  pet  theories 
of  what  is  good  for  our  fellow-men,  it  is  just  through 
these  fellow-men  that  we  are  again  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  truth,  and  recognize  its  immutability. 

If  all  men  were  equal,  law  would  be  superfluous, 
and  education,  as  we  understand  it,  futile,  for  equal 
men  would  require  no  protection  against  each  other, 
nor  could  some  benefit  by  the  example  and  the  teach- 
ing of  others.  Being  unequal,  they  have  agreed,  each 
in  his  own  selfish  interest,  to  submit  to  law,  in  order 
to  protect  each  other  from  the  consequences  of  their 
inequality,  and  to  education,  in  order  that,  so  far  as 
humanly  possible,  the  degree  of  their  inequality  may 
be  lessened. 

We  have,  therefore,  two  distinct  functions  which 
society,  as  constituted  by  individual  man,  has  always 


When  a  Minority  Is  the  People.  377 

been  called  upon  to  perform.  The  governmental  func- 
tion, which  aims  to  prevent  superior  and  inferior  from 
trespassing  upon  each  other's  rights,  and  the  educa- 
tional function,  which  aims  to  bring  superior  and  inferior 
to  the  same  level  of  mental,  moral  and  physical  efficiency. 
If  ever  the  latter  function  (the  educational)  were  to  be 
completed,  the  former  function  (the  governmental) 
would  cease  automatically,  for  the  need  of  human 
government  is  predicated  upon  the  inequality  of  those 
governed.  Unless  this  were  true,  there  would  be  no 
meaning  in  the  saying  that  the  least  governed  people 
are  the  best  governed. 

It  is,  then,  the  confusing  of  these  two  functions  by 
those  in  whom  they  are  vested  which  has  usually  been  the 
source  of  the  differences  that  have  arisen  between  the 
body  ruled  and  the  body  ruling,  for  the  tendency  to 
endeavor  to  accelerate  the  slow  but  steady  process  of 
education  by  force  of  law  is  by  no  means  exclusively 
peculiar  to  our  present  age.  Many  an  autocratic  ruler 
who  has  gone  down  in  history  as  a  selfish  tyrant  really 
committed  no  greater  offense  than  that  of  which  our 
majorities  of  to-day  are  so  often  guilty,  namely,  the 
offense  of  endeavoring  to  anticipate  the  slow  but  endur- 
ing accomplishment  of  education  by  the  quicker  but 
more  transitory  effect  of  legal  compulsion.  One  of 
the  most  enlightened  monarchs  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, for  instance,  nearly  caused  his  subjects  to  rise 
in  revolt  against  him  by  decreeing  that  the  dead  should 


378  When  a  Minority  Is  the  People. 

be  buried  without  coffins,  in  order  that  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  body  might  be  hastened.  If  a  majority 
in  our  day  were  to  order  the  dead  to  be  cremated 
instead  of  buried,  and  it  undoubtedly  has  the  power  to 
do  so,  it  is  more  than  likely  that  a  similar  revolt  would 
be  the  consequence,  and  for  the  same  reason,  namely, 
because  education  has  not  yet  convinced  men  that  the 
rights  of  all  demand  such  a  law. 

This  is  no  attempt  to  prove  that  what  men  are 
taught  to  do  by  education  is  always  right,  and  what 
they  are  unwillingly  compelled  to  do  by  force  of  law 
is  always  wrong.  Probably  there  has  been  as  much 
injudicious  teaching  in  this  world  as  injudicious  govern- 
ment, and  mankind  has  suffered  from  the  one  as  much 
as  from  the  other.  The  point  is  one  of  precedence, 
purely,  and  a  moment's  reflection  will  convince  anyone 
that  government,  even  in  its  most  primitive  stage,  has 
always  been  the  offspring  of  education,  and  not  vice 
versa.  When,  for  instance,  kings  established  their 
power  by  divine  right,  they  did  so  with  the  tacit  con- 
sent of  the  people,  who  had  been  taught  to  believe, 
largely  on  religious  grounds,  that  the  kingly  office  was 
conferred  upon  its  incumbent  by  a  higher  authority 
than  that  of  man.  When,  in  the  course  of  history,  the 
tendency  grew  to  curb  the  royal  power,  it  was  because 
men  had  learned  to  realize  that  there  is  a  human  limit 
even  to  the  exercise  of  divine  right;  and  again,  when 
monarchy  was  abolished  and  purely  representative 


When  a  Minority  Is  the  People.  379 

government  was  instituted  in  its  stead,  it  was  because 
advancing  education  had  previously  convinced  the 
people  that  natural  human  right  entitles  all  men  to  an 
equal  voice  in  human  government. 

It  is  quite  conceivable  that  education  might  have 
proceeded  in  just  the  reverse  direction,  but  it  is  at 
least  questionable  whether,  if  it  had,  we  should  have 
arrived  at  the  stage  of  civilization  which  we  have 
reached  to-day.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  education 
has  not  proceeded  in  the  reverse  direction,  and  it  is 
this  fact  which  we  have  to  reckon  with,  not  the  theories 
of  those  to  whom  the  fact  may  be  inconvenient. 

It  is  a  strange,  and,  indeed,  disquieting  circumstance 
that  so  many  of  our  educators  at  this  day  are  to  be 
found  among  those  who  advance  the  theory  that 
government  can  accomplish  what  education  alone  is 
fitted  to  accomplish,  or  that  it  can  accomplish  it  more 
quickly.  It  argues  a  distrust  of  the  efficacy  of  educa- 
tion which  throws  a  peculiar  light  upon  the  modern 
educator  who  harbors  it.  If  a  teacher,  failing  to  inspire 
his  class  with  the  necessary  willingness  to  absorb  his 
superior  knowledge,  were  to  call  in  a  policeman  to 
enforce  that  willingness  he  would  accomplish  neither 
anything  creditable  to  himself  nor  beneficial  to  those 
whom  it  is  his  duty  to  instruct.  He  would  merely 
confess  his  own  incompetency  as  an  educator,  while 
the  policeman — well,  would  remain  a  policeman  still, 
capable,  no  doubt,  of  swinging  a  club  with  telling  force 


380  When  a  Minority  Is  the  People. 

upon  the  outer  surface  of  a  recalcitrant  pupil's  cranium, 
but  scarcely  with  any  inspiring  effect  upon  that  which 
is  inside  it.  Yet  it  is  that  which  is  inside  it  that  educa- 
tion is  intended  to  reach. 

Apply  the  example  to  the  general  proposition  before 
us.  When  our  educators,  failing  to  impress  the  people 
they  are  called  upon  to  instruct  with  the  necessity  of 
observing  certain  rules  of  personal  conduct  or  follow- 
ing a  certain  prescribed  code  of  morals,  appeal  to  the 
governing  power  to  step  in  and  accomplish  the  desired 
end  by  law,  the  result  is  precisely  the  same.  True,  the 
club  of  the  law  is  undoubtedly  capable  of  descending 
with  telling  force  upon  the  outer  surface  of  the  people's 
cranium,  to  the  extent  even  of  depriving  them  of 
the  power  of  physical  resistance,  but  it  is  not  capable 
of  conveying  any  moral  conviction  to  the  mind  inside, 
without  which  conviction  the  effect  of  the  law's  club 
will  be  but  of  a  temporary  nature.  In  other  words,  a 
law  which  does  not  carry  with  it  the  convincing  power 
that  it  is  right,  even  though  physically  enforced  by  the 
club  of  the  majority,  is  as  practically  ineffective  as  the 
policeman  in  a  schoolroom.  Everyone  admits,  of  course, 
that  the  best  of  laws  without  the  power  to  enforce  them 
would  be  an  absurdity.  But  a  law  which  requires  one- 
half  of  the  people  to  compel  its  observance  by  the  other 
half  is,  as  experience  has  abundantly  shown,  a  still 
greater  absurdity. 

Such   laws   originate   in   our  modern   times    almost 


When  a  Minority  Is  the  People.  381 

invariably  in  the  attempt  of  the  governing  power  to 
usurp  the  function  of  the  educator,  and  since  men's 
notions  of  their  rights,  upon  which  human  government 
is  founded,  are,  whether  right  or  wrong,  the  product  of 
education,  it  is  obvious  that,  when  government  thus 
essays  to  encroach  upon  the  function  properly  belong- 
ing to  education,  it  is  arrogating  to  itself  the  very 
power  that  is  intended  to  direct  and  control  it. 

Our  government,  which  derives  its  authority  from 
the  people,  has  not  been  invested  with  the  power  to 
determine  what  shall  be  the  individual  rights  of  men. 
This  power  has  been  specifically  reserved  to  themselves 
by  the  whole  people,  and  until  the  whole  people  have 
learned  to  change  or  modify  their  recorded  views  on 
the  subject,  the  government,  no  matter  by  how  large  a 
majority  established,  is  bound  to  shape  its  acts  in  strict 
accordance  with  those  views,  or  it  will  violate  the  con- 
tract upon  which  it  is  founded. 

That  contract  stipulates  equal  liberty  and  equal 
protection  for  all  men,  which  means  that  no  man  can 
demand  a  liberty  which  is  not  possessed  equally  by 
every  man,  nor  receive  a  protection,  however  much  he 
may  seem  to  need  it,  that  merely  extends  to  his  own 
person,  and  not,  through  that  person,  to  the  community 
at  large.  In  other  words,  no  man  can  ask  anything  of 
law  for  his  sake  alone,  nor  impose  anything  by  law 
upon  others  for  their  sakes  alone,  without  exceeding 
the  rights  conceded  to  him  by  all  the  people. 


382  When  a  Minority  Is  the  People. 

As  an  illustration  in  point,  for  instance,  compulsory 
vaccination  would  be  a  flagrant  violation  of  this  estab- 
lished principle  of  individual  right,  if  it  merely  aimed 
to  protect  the  individual  himself  against  the  ravages  of 
a  deadly  disease.  But  it  does  not.  It  aims  to  prevent 
the  individual  from  becoming  a  source  of  deadly  con- 
tagion to  all  other  individuals.  A  man,  if  he  choose, 
may  court  death,  but  he  may  not  endanger  his  life  to 
the  peril  of  other  men's  lives.  The  law  against  suicide 
is  for  this  reason  a  monstrosity.  It  could  scarcely  be 
more  so,  indeed,  if  it  subjected  the  would-be  suicide 
to  the  penalty  of  death.  A  law,  in  short,  which  attempts 
to  forbid  what  it  cannot  prevent  is  not  only  wrong  in 
principle,  but  absurd  in  fact. 

It  is  notorious  that  our  statute  books  at  this  day 
literally  swarm  with  just  such  enactments,  and  they 
are  the  result,  either  of  crass  ignorance  of  the  most 
ordinary  principles  of  human  government  on  the  part 
of  our  legislators,  or,  worse,  still,  of  their  truckling  to 
the  imperious  demands  of  theorists  who  are  either 
as  ignorant  as  they,  or  who  have  made  themselves  a 
power  in  political  life  for  the  express  purpose  of  pitting 
their  own  peculiar  conception  of  human  right  against 
the  wisdom  and  experience  of  all  ages.  It  is,  in  fact, 
not  because  the  governing  power  is  arrogating  to  itself 
the  function  of  the  educator,  but  because  the  educator 
is  seeking  to  assume  the  function  of  government,  that 
this  modern  departure  from  all  established  principles  of 


When  a  Minority  Is  the  People.  383 

government  has  become  so  great  a  menace  to  the  com- 
munity at  large. 

It  would  scarcely  be  possible  to  cite  a  more  instructive 
example  of  the  effect  of  this  merging  of  the  educational 
function  in  the  function  of  government  than  that  which 
is  afforded  by  the  attempt  on  the  part  of  a  certain 
class  of  modern  educational  reformers  to  enforce  the 
purely  individual  principle  of  abstinence  from  certain 
indulgences  common  to  the  people  at  large  by  act  of 
law.  That  these  attempts,  wherever  temporarily 
successful,  have  been  made  so  by  the  grossest  misuse  of 
the  power  of  a  majority  against  the  rights  of  the 
minority,  is  best  evidenced  by  what  is  known  in  this 
country  as  the  prohibition  movement,  which  has  resulted 
in  dividing  the  entire  nation,  not  only  socially  and 
politically,  but  racially  and  religiously,  into  two  vio- 
lently hostile  camps. 

It  is  the  theory  of  those  who  foster  this  movement 
that  it  is  necessary,  in  the  interests  of  human  society, 
to  protect  all  men  by  law  against  the  desire  or  the 
temptation  to  drink,  because  a  certain  percentage  of 
men  are  liable  to  indulge  the  habit  to  excess  and  thereby 
become  useless  or  unproductive  members  of  the  com- 
munity. Now,  if  the  effects  of  this  indulgence  were  not 
only  equally  dangerous  to  all,  but  at  the  same  time 
contagious  or  communicable,  all  men  might  become 
equally  interested  in  seeing  the  habit  eradicated.  But 
they  are  not.  An  intoxicated  man  may  be  a  very 


384  When  a  Minority  Is  the  People. 

unpleasant  person  to  meet,  or  he  may  fail  to  provide 
for  his  wife,  who  married  him  in  the  mistaken  belief 
that  he  would  become  the  family  bread-winner,  just  as 
she  might  have  married  a  man  who  proved  too  lazy  to 
work,  or  who  developed  a  vile  temper  which  caused 
him  to  ill-treat  her.  But  intoxication  is  not  contagious, 
or  communicable.  On  the  contrary,  contact  with  a 
drunken  man  acts  upon  others  more  often  with  deter- 
rent than  with  alluring  effect.  Hence  men  who  know 
that  the  pleasure  of  drinking  can  be  indulged  in  by 
them  without  any  fear  of  incurring  a  dangerous  infec- 
tion or  transmitting  it  to  others,  regard  the  protection 
which  the  prohibitionist  claims  he  is  extending  equally 
to  all  men  as,  on  the  contrary,  a  concession  of  individual 
protection  to  some  men  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  right  of 
all. 

This  is  one  fatal  flaw  in  the  prohibition  theory.  But 
there  is  another.  If  the  habit  of  drinking  stimulants 
were  traceable  to  a  virus,  which  is  liable  to  develop  in  the 
human  system  as  in  the  case  of  smallpox  or  tuberculosis, 
the  law  might,  by  sheer  exercise  of  the  physical  force 
wielded  by  a  majority,  compel  all  men  to  be  inoculated 
against  the  virus,  even  though  the  disease  it  produced 
were  not  contagious.  But  human  science  has  so  far  dis- 
covered no  such  virus,  nor  has  any  system  of  law  or  pro- 
cess of  legal  inoculation  been  devised  that  will  effectively 
destroy  the  appetites  and  desires  of  men.  Prohibition, 
therefore,  not  only  violates  the  solemn  guaranty  of 


When  a  Minority  Is  the  People.  385 

individual  right  which  forms  the  very  basis  of  our 
American  Constitution,  namely,  the  guaranty  of  equal 
liberty  and  equal  protection  for  all  men,  but  attempts 
to  forbid  what  it  cannot  prevent,  and  is  for  this  reason 
one  of  the  most  pernicious  products  of  the  modern 
reform  theory. 

It  is  almost  pathetic  to  reflect  that,  in  a  country 
like  ours,  where  every  man,  through  his  vote,  con- 
tributes his  share  towards  the  government  of  the  nation, 
so  few  should  possess  even  the  most  rudimentary  knowl- 
edge of  the  fundamental  principle  upon  which  that  gov- 
ernment was  established,  and  that,  in  consequence,  so 
many  remain  totally  blind  to  the  grave  danger  of 
permitting  even  the  slightest  infraction  of  that  prin- 
ciple by  those  whom  they  elect,  not  to  rule  the  com- 
munity, as  some  erroneously  suppose,  but  merely  to 
perform  the  governmental  function  on  behalf  of  all 
of  its  members. 

If  the  people  are  sovereign — and  few  will  have  the 
temerity  to  deny  that  our  constitution  intended  that 
they  should  be — then  the  majority  is  merely  a  viceroy, 
and  a  viceroy  is  appointed,  not  to  exercise  the  sovereign 
power,  but  only  to  perform  those  sovereign  functions 
which  the  sovereign  himself  is  not  able  to  perform 
in  person.  The  moment  a  viceroy  successfully  usurps 
his  sovereign's  power,  the  sovereignty  of  the  latter  is 
a  thing  of  the  past,  even  though  he  may  remain  king 
in  name. 


386  When  a  Minority  Is  the  People. 

And  so  it  is  with  the  sovereign  people.  The  function 
of  the  majority  is  purely  viceregal,  and  while  the 
majority  performs  that  viceregal  function,  the  minor- 
ity becomes  the  guardian  of  the  people's  sovereign 
rights.  Thus  the  answer  to  the  question  implied  in 
the  words,  "When  a  minority  is  the  people,"  is  clearly 
indicated.  A  minority  is  the  people  when  the  majority 
is  a  king. 


Some    Reflections    on    the    Relation 
Between  Liberty  and  Law 

(From  the  American  Leader,  March  25,  1915.) 

It  is  a  strange  fact  that  what  men  cherish  most  they 
usually  think  least  about;  they  just  take  it  for  granted. 
If  this  applies  to  a  man's  religion — and  it  does  so  to  a 
very  large  extent — it  applies  with  equal  force  to  that 
which  man  reverences  most  next  to  his  religion — his 
liberty. 

Ask  the  first  ten  men  you  meet  on  any  day  of  the 
week  what  their  conception  of  liberty  is,  and  nine  of 
them,  if  they  tell  the  truth,  will  probably  admit  that 
they  have  never  given  the  question  a  moment's  thought. 
The  tenth  may  say:  "Liberty  is  my  right  to  do  as  I 
please,  within  the  law,"  and  the  remaining  nine,  if  they 
hear  the  definition,  are  likely  to  accept  it  with  complete 
satisfaction,  never  realizing  that  the  very  relation 
between  law  and  liberty  is  the  crux  of  the  whole  prob- 
lem; in  other  words,  that  the  definition  states  the 
problem,  but  does  not  solve  it. 

Yet  it  is  upon  these  very  men,  and  the  millions  of 
which  they  are  typical,  that  the  maintenance  of  the 
substructure  depends  upon  which  the  edifice  of  human 
liberty  is  built.  For  liberty,  far  from  being  an  un- 


388          Relation  Between  Law  and  Liberty. 

conditional  privilege  of  man,  is,  on  the  contrary,  the 
outgrowth  of  certain  conditions  which  lie  in  man's 
own  making  or  unmaking,  and  first  and  foremost  of 
which  is  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that,  where  all 
enjoy  equal  liberty,  no  man  can  be  free  to  interfere 
with  the  freedom  of  his  neighbor.  Hence,  though  our 
modern  institutions  guarantee  us  the  continuance  of 
our  liberties,  they  do  so  only  upon  the  assumption  that 
we  shall  do  our  share  towards  preserving  the  conditions 
which  have  made  those  liberties  possible.  Each  indi- 
vidual among  us  is  responsible  for  that  preservation, 
both  to  himself  and  to  his  fellow-individuals,  and  any 
lack  of  diligence  on  his  part  in  fulfilling  that  responsi- 
bility, or  enforcing  its  fulfillment  by  others,  endangers 
the  liberties  of  all. 

Here,  then,  would  seem  to  be  the  first  and  foremost 
duty  of  the  citizen;  yet,  unfortunately,  it  is  the  one 
duty  he  gives  least  thought  to.  He  is  satisfied  to 
intrust  such  matters  to  those  whom  he  elects  to  govern 
him,  and,  having  once  elected  them,  he  goes  with  a  light 
heart  about  his  business. 

He  forgets  that  the  people  are  as  responsible  for  the 
government  they  elect  as  the  government  is  responsible 
for  the  people  who  elect  it.  Any  dereliction  of  duty 
on  the  part  of  the  ruling  power  in  a  representative 
government  is  a  dereliction  of  duty  on  the  part  of 
those  who  have  constituted  that  power.  It  is  not  to 
be  expected  that  millions  of  men  will  ever  be  of  one 


Eelation  Between  Law  and  Liherty.          389 

mind  on  any  specific  proposition  of  government. 
Hence,  the  necessity,  even  in  representative  govern- 
ment, of  rule  by  majority.  But  that  rule  applies  to 
the  specific  details  of  government  only,  not  to  the 
principle  of  individual  human  liberty  which  underlies 
it.  The  safeguarding  of  that  principle,  both  against 
certain  elements  of  the  community  at  large  who  are 
forever  seeking  a  pretext  to  overthrow  it,  and  against 
those  who  may  be  tempted  by  the  temporary  tenure  of 
power  to  violate  it  for  their  own  gain,  lies  with  the 
people  at  large. 

Those  of  the  former  class  maintain  that  liberty 
means  the  license  to  do  as  you  please,  regardless  of 
law,  and  they  point  to  the  latter  class  as  proof  of  their 
assertion.  Thus  the  actions  of  the  grafting  politician, 
the  servile  legislator,  and  the  corrupt  administrator  of 
our  time,  as  well  as  of  their  creator  and  creature,  the 
unscrupulous  and  law-defying  citizen,  are  cited  by 
them  as  examples  of  the  exercise  of  liberty.  The  fact, 
of  course,  is  that  they  are  just  the  reverse.  It  is 
precisely  these  men  who  are  undermining  the  primary 
condition  upon  which  our  liberties  hinge,  namely,  the 
recognition  of  the  truth  that  man  can  only  secure  the 
blessing  of  liberty  in  exactly  the  degree  in  which  he 
extends  that  blessing  to  his  neighbor.  But,  if  such 
men  are  responsible  for  the  nefarious  misuse  of  the 
power  vested  in  them,  they  are  no  more  so  than  are 
the  rest  of  us  twenty  odd  million  voters  of  the  country, 


390          Relation  Between  Law  and  Liberty. 

in  whose  hands  it  lies  to  drive  these  malefactors  from 
their  positions  of  power  and  put  better  men  in  their 
places. 

Man,  on  the  whole,  therefore,  is  as  free  as  he 
deserves  to  be;  which  means  that,  if,  in  his  collective 
capacity,  he  is  not  able  enough,  or  determined  enough, 
to  repress  the  individual  who  violates  the  principle  of 
liberty,  he  thereby  fails  to  make  good  his  own  claim 
to  be  free. 

Liberty,  in  fact,  is  inseparable  from  order,  and  the 
strongest  evidence  of  that  waning  of  the  sense  of 
liberty  in  our  commonwealth,  of  which  there  are  indub- 
itable signs  to-day,  consists  in  the  lamentable  indiffer- 
ence with  which  so  large  a  proportion  of  our  present- 
day  citizenship  regard  their  individual  responsibility 
for  the  maintenance  of  that  condition  of  public  order 
and  rectitude  which  constitutes  the  main  safeguard  of 
our  liberty.  Too  indolent  to  perform  their  individual 
duty  in  this  regard,  yet  alive  to  the  necessity  of  cor- 
recting what  they  themselves  fail  to  correct,  these 
people  become  an  easy  prey  to  the  false  doctrine  which 
teaches  that  it  is  liberty  that  is  subversive  of  order,  and 
that  consequently  order  can  only  be  established  at  the 
sacrifice  of  liberty. 

The  truth  is,  not  that  liberty  is  destructive  of  order, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  that  lack  of  order  is  destructive 
of  liberty.  Order  may  be  conceivable  without  liberty, 
but  liberty  is  inconceivable  without  order.  The  exer- 


Relation  Between  Law  and  Liberty.          391 

cise  of  liberty  is  indeed  the  most  intelligent  expression 
of  the  human  will,  because  true  liberty  cannot  exist 
unless  it  gives  exactly  what  it  takes,  and  it  is  therefore 
only  possible  to  him  who  recognizes  that  the  safety 
of  his  own  rights  lies  in  the  protection  he  extends,  and 
compels  his  fellow-man  to  extend,  to  the  same  rights 
in  others. 

How  necessary  it  is  to  extend  that  protection  to  our 
fellow-man,  regardless  of  what  we  may  individually 
think  of  the  discretion  he  displays  in  exercising  his 
liberty,  must  have  been  very  forcibly  brought  home  of 
late  to  the  commercial  man  of  the  country,  who  has 
for  years  contemplated,  sometimes  with  amusement, 
and  not  infrequently  even  with  approval,  the  modern 
trend  to  curtail  the  purely  social  liberties  of  the 
people,  never  realizing  that  his  tacit  acquiescence  in 
that  curtailment  meant  the  establishing  of  a  precedent 
which  warranted  the  curtailment  of  his  own.  At  least, 
it  can  be  said  that,  if  the  business  man  has  not  yet 
awakened  to  this  fact,  it  is  high  time  that  he  should, 
for  the  most  superficial  investigation  will  prove  to 
him  that  the  same  elements  in  the  community  which 
aim  to  restrict  the  social  liberty  of  the  individual  are 
the  elements  that  aim  to  interfere  with  his  commercial, 
industrial,  or  any  other  liberty  which  he  happens  to 
prize. 

These  elements  have  only  one  conception  of  liberty, 
namely,  unrestricted  license.  They  do  not  realize  that 


392          Relation  Between  Law  and  Liberty. 

unrestricted  license  is  the  very  antithesis  of  liberty 
in  the  social  sense  in  which  we  understand  it;  nay, 
they  do  not  realize  that  it  is  just  unrestricted  license 
which  they  themselves  are  advocating  when  they  de- 
mand that  their  particular  view  of  what  man  is 
entitled  or  not  entitled  to  do  shall  govern  all  men's 
actions.  The  essentially  reciprocal  feature,  in  short, 
which  makes  liberty  an  asset  in  which  all  mankind 
possesses  equal  partnership  rights,  is  inconceivable 
to  them. 

The  best  proof  of  this  fact  is  afforded  by  the  favorite 
contention  so  often  advanced  by  this  school  of  modern 
thinkers,  by  way  of  justifying  the  restrictions  they 
would  place  upon  men's  liberties,  that  when  we  murder 
our  fellow-being,  or  steal  his  purse,  or  destroy  the 
happiness  of  his  home,  we  are  exercising  our  liberty. 
Of  course,  we  are  doing  just  the  contrary,  for  we  are 
violating  the  cardinal  principle  on  which  all  human 
liberty  is  founded — namely,  the  equal  right  of  all  men 
to  life,  property,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  just 
as  they  are  violating  that  principle  when  they  seek  to 
deprive  man  of  his  liberty  of  action,  not  because  it 
interferes  with  the  liberty  of  his  neighbor,  but  because 
it  does  not  conform  with  their  notion  of  what  that 
action  ought  to  be.  If  it  were  an  exercise  of  liberty 
for  me  to  take  my  neighbor's  life  or  his  property, 
where  would  be  my  liberty  to  retain  possession  of  my 
own  life  or  property?  Such  possession  would  depend, 


Relation  Between  Law  and  Liherty.          393 

under  those  circumstances,  not  upon  any  right  inherent 
in  me,  but  upon  my  individual  power  to  defend  my 
possession  against  the  rest  of  my  kind.  That  power 
is  the  basic  principle  of  the  law  of  the  jungle,  which 
the  aforesaid  school  of  thinkers  have  the  amiable  habit 
of  confusing  with  the  principle  of  human  liberty, 
utterly  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  it  is  just  that  law 
of  the  jungle  which  they  are  aiming  to  substitute  for 
the  liberty  they  refer  to  so  contemptuously.  For  the 
law  of  the  jungle  is  the  law  of  the  strongest,  and  it 
matters  but  little,  so  far  as  my  liberty  is  concerned, 
whether  I  forfeit  it  to  an  individual  who  is  physically 
stronger  than  I  am,  or  whether  it  is  taken  from  me 
by  an  aggregation  of  individuals  calling  themselves  a 
majority,  whose  power  exceeds  mine. 

The  fact  is  that  liberty,  in  the  human  sense,  is  not, 
as  so  many  thoughtlessly  believe,  founded  upon  our 
law,  but,  on  the  contrary,  our  law  is  founded  upon 
liberty,  and  it  is  to  the  non-realization  of  this  important 
difference  that  our  many  legislative  blunders  are  due. 

Your  agitator  against  individual  liberty  will  tell  you 
that  it  is  the  protection  of  the  weak  against  the  strong 
that  necessitates  the  curtailment  of  that  liberty  by  law. 
But  the  statement  is  utterly  and  palpably  false.  It  is 
just  of  the  very  essence  of  liberty  that  it  affords  the 
weak  protection  against  the  strong.  It  is  also  of  the 
very  essence  of  liberty,  as  expressed  by  law,  that  no 
man,  whether  weak  or  strong,  shall  be  forced  to  accept 


394          Relation  Between  Law  and  Liherty. 

protection  against  himself,  for  has  it  not  invariably 
been  on  the  pretext  of  protecting  men  against  them- 
selves that  tyrants  in  all  ages  have  succeeded  in  estab- 
lishing their  despotic  power?  Thus,  if  I  own  the 
finest  mansion  in  the  universe,  I  am  free  to  destroy  it 
in  the  full  wantonness  of  my  individual  folly,  without 
let  or  hindrance  on  any  man's  part,  but  I  may  not  lay 
a  finger  upon  the  cottage  belonging  to  my  humblest 
fellow-man.  His  cottage  is  his  freedom,  which  I  am 
bound  to  respect.  My  palace  is  my  freedom,  which  he 
is  bound  to  respect.  We  are  each  equally  responsible 
to  each  other,  but  not  for  each  other. 

The  real  truth  is  that  the  modern  theory  which  calls 
for  the  sacrifice  of  our  liberty  is  based  upon  the  assump- 
tion that  this  sacrifice  is  necessary  in  order  that  the 
weak  among  us  may  be  protected  against  their  own 
weakness,  that  is  their  incapacity  to  use  their  liberty 
with  judgment  and  discretion,  and  this  is  a  proposition 
of  such  far-reaching  effect  that  it  is  impossible  to  over- 
estimate its  seriousness. 

Putting  aside  the  abstract  question  of  individual 
human  liberty  and  the  important  part  it  has  played 
in  the  advancement  of  human  culture,  let  us  ask  our- 
selves whether  it  is  possible  to  protect  a  man  against 
his  own  weakness.  Speaking  offhand,  we  would  say 
that  the  possibility  is  at  best  a  very  doubtful  one. 
Weakness  may  be  defined  as  the  lack  of  power  to 
resist,  and  if  we  so  surround  our  weaklings  that  there 


Relation  Between  Law  and  Liberty.          395 

shall  be  nothing  for  them  to  resist,  they  may  escape  the 
immediate  penalty  of  their  weakness.  But  will  they  be 
ultimately  any  better  off?  Or,  to  be  more  specific,  will 
their  weakness  grow  greater  or  less?  By  wrapping 
a  man  with  a  weak  heart  in  cotton  wool,  and  carefully 
shutting  him  off  from  any  excitement  or  exertion,  you 
may  save  him  from  a  premature  death,  but  you  will 
not  cure  his  weak  heart.  We  confine  our  insane  in 
asylums,  but  that,  in  itself,  does  not  cure  their  insanity, 
and,  though  we  lock  up  our  criminals  in  jails,  we  do 
not  thereby  convert  them  into  useful  members  of 
society. 

If  strength,  then,  is  the  power  to  resist,  of  what  good 
is  that  power  without  the  opportunity  to  exercise  it? 
All  evidence  of  nature  goes  to  prove  that  there  is  no 
sense  or  function  in  man,  beast,  or  plant  that  does  not 
disappear  or  become  atrophied  with  the  lack  of  oppor- 
tunity to  exercise  it,  nor  is  there  any  such  sense  or 
function  among  Nature's  creatures  that  has  not  grown 
more  perfect  in  proportion  to  the  opportunity  given  to 
exercise  it.  Would,  for  instance,  the  mole  of  to-day 
have  sightless  eyes  but  for  his  habit  of  living  in  the 
safety  of  the  earth's  depths,  where  no  opportunity 
existed  to  exercise  his  sense  of  sight?  Would  the  eagle 
of  our  time  be  able  to  gaze  into  the  sun's  light  if  his 
forefathers  had  shrunk  from  braving  the  power  of  its 
burning  rays?  It  is  true  that,  by  living  in  darkness, 
some  individual  moles  may  have  escaped  the  immediate 


396          Relation  Between  Law  and  Liberty. 

consequence  of  their  weakness,  who  would  otherwise 
have  succumbed  to  it.  Likewise  it  is  possible  that  some 
individual  eagles  may  have  succumbed  to  the  blinding 
power  of  the  sun's  light  who  would  have  suffered  no 
such  consequences  had  they  refrained  from  exposing 
themselves  to  it.  But  it  is  the  race  as  a  whole  we  are 
considering  here,  not  the  individual,  which  is  strictly  in 
accordance  with  the  trend  of  our  modern  age.  And 
which  race  is  better  off,  in  the  ultimate  result  to-day, 
the  race  of  moles  with  their  blind  eyes,  or  the  race  of 
eagles  with  their  sun-defying  orbs  of  sight? 

According  to  the  theory  of  some,  the  mole  started 
his  career  with  weak  eyesight,  which  caused  certain 
hygienically  inclined  mole-leaders  to  decree  that  this 
lack  of  power  to  resist  light  should  be  met  by  removing 
all  necessity  for  such  resistance;  in  other  words,  by 
causing  all  moles  to  live  in  the  dark.  Had  the  eagles, 
in  that  spirit  of  indiscriminate  race  charity  peculiar  to 
the  modern  human,  been  moved  to  likewise  deprive 
themselves  of  the  liberty  to  brave  the  sunlight  in  order 
to  help  the  moles  to  carry  out  this  decree,  it  would  not 
have  caused  the  mole  to  acquire  the  eyesight  of  the 
eagle,  but  it  would  have  compelled  the  eagle  to  con- 
tract the  blindness  of  the  mole. 

According  to  another  theory,  the  race  of  moles  aimed 
to  escape  extinction  at  the  hands  of  the  race  of  eagles 
by  seeking  the  greater  safety  afforded  them  in  the 
darkness  below  the  earth's  surface.  If  this  theory  is 


Relation  Between  Law  and  Liberty.          397 

correct,  the  fact  marks  a  significant  difference  between 
the  moles  and  eagles  and  the  human  race.  Human 
intelligence  was  capable  of  conceiving  and  developing 
the  idea  of  liberty,  which  implies  the  protection  of  the 
weak  from  the  strong,  whereas  the  moles  and  the  eagles 
were  not.  Hence  the  moles,  not  enjoying  with  the 
eagles  the  benefit  of  the  human  compact  which  we 
call  liberty,  had  to  save  their  existence  from  the  eagles 
at  the  cost  of  their  sense  of  sight. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  if  comparisons  count  for 
anything,  that  liberty  scores  all  along  the  line,  for  if, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  mole  had  not  feared  so  much  for 
his  weak  eyesight  as  to  deny  himself  the  liberty  of 
exercising  his  sense  of  sight  in  the  full  light  of  day,  he 
wouldn't  ultimately  have  lost  his  eyesight  altogether. 
Or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  eagle  hadn't  insisted  upon 
violating  the  weaker  mole's  liberty  by  devouring  him 
at  sight,  the  latter  would  not  have  been  compelled  to 
sacrifice  both  his  liberty  and  his  sense  of  sight  in  order 
to  save  his  miserable  existence  in  the  bowels  of  the 
earth. 

The  illustration  proves,  then,  that  if  our  friend  the 
mole  was  able,  temporarily,  at  least,  to  protect  himself 
against  the  consequence  of  his  own  weakness,  the  cost 
at  which  he  did  so  was  prodigious.  In  other  words,  he 
saved  himself  from  total  extinction,  but,  incidentally, 
instead  of  curing  his  weak  eyesight,  he  converted  it 
into  complete  blindness.  And  all  this  for  the  want  of 


398          Relation  Between  Law  and  Liberty. 

that  liberty,  which,  if  he  and  his  fellow-being,  the  eagle, 
had  been  capable  of  conceiving  and  practicing  it, 
would  have  given  each  his  right  to  an  equal  place  in 
the  sun,  and  made  of  the  mole,  if  not  an  eagle,  at  least 
a  more  distinguished  member  of  animal  society  than 
he  can  boast  of  being  to-day. 

But  we  no  longer  take  our  lessons  from  Nature. 
Nature  leaves  her  creatures  to  adapt  themselves  to 
their  surroundings.  We  are  trying  to  adapt  the  sur- 
roundings to  Nature's  creatures.  The  question  is, 
which  is  likely  to  produce  the  best  results,  Nature's 
system,  or  Man's?  Judging  from  experience,  the 
odds  appear  to  be  largely  in  favor  of  Nature,  for 
while  Nature's  system  has  produced  some  unfortunate 
moles,  it  has  also  given  a  race  of  eagles  to  the  world. 
Some  of  us  think  it  might  be  better  if  all  were  eagles, 
but,  in  our  endeavor  to  convert  all  moles  of  Nature's 
making  into  eagles  of  human  make,  there  is  the  uncer- 
tainty whether  the  result  may  not  prove  to  be  the 
reverse,  namely,  the  conversion  of  all  eagles  of  Nature's 
making  into  moles  of  human  make.  There  is  some 
warrant,  in  fact,  in  past  experience  for  the  fear  that 
this  may  indeed  prove  to  be  the  result.  But,  then, 
experience  is  one  of  the  things  we  no  longer  take 
much  stock  in.  We  believe  in  experiment,  not  in 
experience.  We  forget,  perhaps,  that  experiment  is 
merely  experience  in  the  making.  But  that  is  a  detail. 

Some  mathematical   freak  once  reckoned  out  that, 


399  Relation  Between  Law  and  Liberty. 

if  all  the  human  energy  expended  in  fruitless  endeavors 
to  cure  the  incurable  were  translated  into  motive 
power,  it  would  be  more  than  sufficient  to  run  all  the 
machinery  in  the  world.  The  possibilities  of  economy 
and  greater  efficiency  that  suggest  themselves  here 
almost  transcend  human  conception.  Perhaps  some 
day  a  genius  will  be  born  capable  of  exploiting  those 
possibilities.  Until  then  we  must  content  ourselves 
with  dreaming  of  them — eugenically. 


Liberty,  Race  Culture,  and  Our 
Balance  of  Profit  and  Loss 

An  Address  Delivered  Before  the  New  Jersey  State 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  at  Newark,  N.  J.,  on  April 
13,  1915. 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen :  In  these  days  of  san- 
itation, and  eugenics  and  hygiene,  and  the  race  for  per- 
fect efficiency  of  muscle  and  brain,  when,  wherever  we 
turn,  we  meet  an  anti-this  society  or  an  anti-that  league, 
an  association  for  the  legal  suppression  of  this  evil,  or  a 
club  for  the  legal  eradication  of  that  abuse,  it  is  not  the 
easiest  of  tasks  to  discuss  the  somewhat  antiquated  sub- 
ject of  liberty  before  any  gathering  of  men  without 
treading  upon  some  one's  favorite  corn. 

Perhaps,  indeed,  I  ought  to  feel  a  particular  hesitancy 
about  discussing,  before  a  body  of  pre-eminently  com- 
mercial men,  a  subject  apparently  so  far  removed  as  this 
one  is  from  their  special  sphere  of  interest.  But  I  be- 
lieve that,  at  this  day,  there  is  no  class  of  citizens  that  has 
so  much  reason  to  apply  its  thoughts  to  this  very  subject 
of  liberty  as  that  of  the  business  men  of  the  country. 
You  know  people  sometimes  do  not  realize  that  they 
possess  a  stomach  until  they  swallow  something  that 
upsets  that  stomach,  and  then  they  know  it  for  certain. 


Liberty  and  Race  Culture.  401 

Now,  liberty  is  to  commerce  and  industry,  as  it  is  to  all 
other  affairs  of  man,  what  the  stomach  is  to  the  human 
body,  only  the  business  man  didn't  find  it  out  until  quite 
recently,  when  a  sudden  overdose  of  legislative  restric- 
tion disagreed  with  that  stomach  and  set  his  whole  com- 
mercial body  aching.  Since  then,  unless  he  is  different 
from  all  other  stomach  invalids,  he  may  be  presumed  to 
take  an  intelligent  interest  in  stomachs  and  stomach 
ailments  in  general,  and  to  appreciate  the  opportunity, 
so  highly  prized  by  all  sick  people,  of  comparing  his 
own  symptoms  with  those  of  his  fellow-sufferers.  At 
least,  if  he  doesn't,  it  is  high  time  that  he  should,  and 
that  relieves  me  from  further  apology  in  the  premises. 

Now,  the  fact  is  that  all  of  us  love  liberty — of  a  kind. 
Some  like  it  in  homeopathic  doses,  especially  where  their 
neighbor  is  concerned.  Others  demand  it  in  full  allo- 
pathic strength,  especially  where  they  themselves  are 
concerned.  All  have  some  sort  of  liberty  which  they 
desire  to  exercise;  only  most  of  us  regard  just  that  sort 
of  liberty  which  we  ourselves  affect  and  approve  as  the 
only  liberty  that  is  fit  for  others. 

The  fact  that  liberty,  in  the  social  sense  in  which  ex- 
perience has  taught  us  to  understand  it,  means,  broadly, 
equal  rights  and  equal  protection  for  all  men,  has  been 
largely  forgotten  by  many  of  us.  Race-betterment  has 
become  the  dominant — well,  I  will  not  say  fad,  because 
the  subject  is  too  sacred — but  let  me  say  the  dominant 
trend  of  our  age,  and  many  of  us  are  willing  and  ready 


402  Liberty  and  Race  Culture. 

to  sacrifice  even  our  liberty  upon  the  altar  of  race-bet- 
terment, entirely  forgetful  that  the  very  basis  and 
foundation  of  all  human  betterment  thus  far  achieved 
has  been  precisely  that  liberty  which  we  are  so  blindly 
ready  to  sacrifice.  It  is  just  as  if  a  man  had  built  a 
house  five  stories  high,  and  having  determined  to  put 
several  more  stories  upon  it,  concluded  that  the  first 
thing  necessary  in  order  to  accomplish  this  was  to  remove 
the  foundation  upon  which  the  first  five  stories  were 
erected. 

Some  one  has  said:  Show  me  the  .freest  people  on 
earth,  and  I  will  show  you  the  most  progressive.  Is 
there  an  American  who  will  have  the  temerity  to  ques- 
tion that  statement?  Yet  America  is  today  in  danger 
of  affording  an  example  of  the  obverse  of  what  the 
statement  expresses,  namely:  show  me  the  least  free 
people  on  earth,  and  I  will  show  you  the  least  progres- 
sive. There  is  nothing  perfect  in  this  world — Nature 
has  so  decreed  it,  and  in  consequence  we  must  pay  for 
our  freedom,  as  we  must  pay  for  everything  else  we 
possess  and  enjoy.  It  is  merely  a  question  of  what 
we  get  for  that  which  we  pay. 

Let  me  illustrate.  We  are  all  mighty  proud  and 
satisfied  to  know  that  average  human  life  has  within 
comparatively  recent  times  been  lengthened  by  quite 
a  respectable  span  of  years.  This  has  been  accom- 
plished, not  by  laws  applied  directly  to  the  individual 
and  his  personal  actions  and  doings,  but  by  the  expendi- 


Liherty  and  Race  Culture.  403 

ture  of  a  little  administrative  wisdom  and  by  the  acqui- 
sition and  application  of  a  little  sound  scientific  knowl- 
edge. Is  there  a  man  seated  at  these  tables  who  would 
not  wish  to  see  the  average  length  of  human  life  still 
further  extended?  Well,  we  are  told  that  it  can  be 
done.  Indeed,  it  is  the  opinion  of  some  of  our  fellow- 
men  that  by  merely  giving  up  most  of  that  which  we 
have  come  to  regard  as  pleasant  and  agreeable  in  our 
lives  we  can  still  further  lengthen  our  average  existence. 
I  don't  know  what  you  think  about  it,  but  I  am  frank 
to  say  for  myself  that,  if  the  length  of  my  life  is  to  be 
in  inverse  ratio  to  the  enjoyment  I  am  to  get  from 
it,  I  for  one  would  prefer  to  have  my  life  made  as  short 
as  possible.  Perhaps  that  is  a  cranky  notion,  but,  in 
these  days  of  cranky  notions  generally,  I  am  surely 
entitled  to  have  mine. 

The  fact  is  that  there  is  one  sense  the  cultivation 
of  which  has  been  sadly  neglected  among  us,  and  our 
deficiency  in  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  our  cranky 
notions  and  the  many  preposterous  consequences  they 
produce  in  this  very  imperfect  world  we  are  so  bent 
upon  making  perfect  in  record  time.  That  sense  is 
the  sense  of  proportion.  If  any  fellow  countryman 
of  ours  makes  a  particularly  sensational  hit  with  us, 
either  by  some  well-turned  phrase  in  a  public  speech, 
or  by  some  extraordinary  feat  of  learning,  or  by  some 
signal  act  of  heroism  or  sacrifice,  we  don't  signify  our 
approval  or  appreciation  of  his  accomplishment,  as 


404  Liberty  and  Race  Culture. 

they  would  in  other  countries,  by  conferring  a  distinc- 
tion upon  the  man  that  is  proportionate  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case.  Not  a  bit  of  it.  If  we  are 
really  in  earnest,  we  boom  him  for  President.  We 
either  go  the  whole  hog,  or  we  don't  go  at  all.  We 
can't  move  by  degrees,  because  a  degree  is  a  proportion, 
and  we  are  blind  to  all  proportion. 

This  defect  in  our  mental  vision  of  things  shows 
itself  whether  we  are  dealing  with  the  weightiest  or 
the  most  trivial  affairs  of  our  social  life.  Instances, 
in  fact,  have  become  so  numerous  that  the  difficulty 
is  to  select  those  that  are  most  instructive. 

I  will  eschew  for  the  moment  those  instances  more 
directly  affecting  the  commercial  life  of  our  citizen- 
ship, in  which  you  are  specifically  interested,  and  cite 
a  few  samples  of  that  minor  freak  legislation  of  ours 
which  has  in  recent  years  made  America  a  bye-word 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and  which,  if  we  would 
only  realize  it,  has  been  the  forerunner  of  that  graver 
legislative  malady  from  which  the  nation  in  general, 
and  its  commerce  and  industry  in  particular,  are  today 
suffering. 

In  every  case  you  will  find  that  the  utter  absence 
of  all  sense  of  proportion. underlies  the  action  of  the 
legislator  who  proposes,  the  law-making  body  which 
enacts,  and  the  people  at  large  who  acquiesce  in,  the 
statutory  absurdities  involved. 

For    example,    because    certain    games    lend    them- 


Liberty  and  Race  Culture.  405 

selves  to  the  practice  of  betting  or  staking  money,  all 
games  of  this  character,  including  dominoes,  checkers 
and  the  like,  have  been  forbidden  in  one  of  our  States, 
even  within  the  four  walls  of  a  citizen's  private  resi- 
dence. In  another  State  the  law  prescribes  the  exact 
quantity  of  certain  beverages  which  the  private  citizen 
is  permitted  to  purchase  and  keep  in  his  home  at  one 
time,  and  providing  heavy  penalties  if  he  should  ever 
exceed  that  quantity.  Again,  in  another  State,  a  man 
is  debarred  from  indulging  in  a  game  of  billiards  in  a 
public  place,  if  the  community  by  a  majority  vote 
decides  that  such  pastime  is  undesirable.  In  one 
State  you  violate  the  law  if  you  tip  any  one  who 
renders  you  a  service;  in  another  you  are  punished  if 
you  smoke  a  cigarette.  In  one  State  it  is  proposed 
to  forbid  physicians  and  dentists  to  wear  beards  and 
whiskers;  in  another  State  they  are  aiming  to  regu- 
late the  style  and  character  of  women's  wearing  ap- 
parel. There  is  actually  a  law  today  under  the  con- 
sideration of  one  of  our  legislatures  which  proposes 
to  punish  tailors  if  they  make  trousers  containing 
hip-pockets,  and  to  fine  the  citizen  who  wears  such 
trousers,  because,  forsooth,  hip-pockets  are  occasion- 
ally used  as  receptacles  for  revolvers.  In  Wisconsin 
a  bill  has  just  been  introduced  providing  that  house- 
maids shall  be  given  at  least  two  nights  a  week  off 
and  have  a  special  room  set  apart  for  them  to  receive 
their  callers  in.  In  the  State  of  Illinois  a  law  was 


406  Liberty  and  Race  Culture. 

recently  enacted  determining  what  the  minimum  width 
and  length  of  bed  sheets  used  in  hotels  shall  be,  and 
providing  for  the  punishment  of  hotelkeepers  whose 
bed  sheets  do  not  conform  to  such  minimum  measure- 
ments. Nothing,  in  short,  is  so  trifling  as  to  escape 
the  attention  of  our  legislators,  and  cause  the  adoption 
of  restrictive  or  coercive  measures  which  are  out  of  all 
proportion  far-reaching  when  compared  with  the  con- 
ditions they  aim  to  correct. 

You  may  laugh  at  these  laws,  and  see  nothing  but 
their  comic  side.  But  I  say  to  you  that  their  bearing 
is  an  infinitely  wider  one  than  many  imagine,  for  you 
cannot  acquiesce  in  the  violation  of  the  principle  of 
personal  right  in  matters  that  appear  of  no  moment 
to  you  without  eventually  jeopardizing  the  stability 
of  that  principle  as  applied  to  matters  that  are 
of  moment  to  you.  It  is  not  the  specific  absurdity 
of  this  legislation  which  I  am  trying  to  bring  home 
to  you,  but  the  generally  dangerous  trend  of  the  public 
mind  which  it  indicates,  and  which  is  gradually  leading 
us,  as  you  must  have  learned  in  recent  years,  to  ac- 
quiesce in  absurdities  of  a  far  graver  nature. 

Take  an  occurrence  of  quite  recent  date  in  the  City 
of  Chicago,  which  may  have  come  to  the  notice  of 
some  of  you,  and  which,  trivial  as  it  may  appear,  is 
typical  of  this  general  trend  of  the  public  mind,  the 
danger  of  which  I  am  discussing. 

Two  lady  bathers  were  recently  annoyed  on  a  well- 


Liberty  and  Race  Culture.  407 

known  Chicago  bathing  beach  by  a  couple  of  male 
rowdies,  while  swimming  with  thousands  of  others  of 
both  sexes,  whose  chief  enjoyment  consists  in  partaking 
of  the  pleasures  of  the  water  together.  The  indigna- 
tion of  the  citizenship,  of  course,  knew  no  bounds, 
and  incidentally  also,  as  usual,  it  knew  no  proportion. 
Any  one  with  a  sense  of  proportion  would  have  seen 
to  it  that  the  two  male  rowdies  were  given  a  sound 
thrashing  and  sent  home  in  an  ambulance  as  a  warning 
to  all  others  of  like  character  and  tendencies.  But 
what  did  occur?  A  rule  or  law  was  promptly  passed 
compelling  all  male  and  all  female  bathers,  i.  e.,  the 
thousands  of  respectable  husbands  and  wives,  brothers 
and  sisters,  or  friends  and  acquaintances  of  either  sex, 
henceforth  to  bathe  in  separate  enclosures,  and  thus 
forego  the  companionship  which  was  the  main  pleasure 
their  daily  plunge  afforded  them.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  this  edict,  which  classed  all  men  as  potentially 
incapable  of  observing  the  ordinary  manners  and  de- 
cencies of  life,  prevented  any  female  bather  from  ever 
again  being  molested  by  a  rowdy  male  bather,  just  as 
surely  as  the  cutting  off  of  a  man's  head  will  prevent 
him  from  ever  suffering  again  from  headache.  The 
question  in  either  case  is:  Is  the  cure  of  the  evil 
worth  the  cost  of  the  remedy? 

That,  indeed,  is  the  main  question  to  be  determined 
wherever  our  liberties  are  involved,  and,  unfortunately, 
too  few  of  those  who  are  advocating  remedies  for  our 


408  Liberty  and  Race  Culture. 

evils  today  are  alive  to  the  necessity  of  counting  the 
cost  of  those  remedies. 

There  is  a  ridiculous  but  very  apposite  story  of  a 
railroad  switchman  who  has  just  side-tracked  a  freight 
train  in  order  to  make  way  for  an  express,  and,  in  the 
act  of  throwing  the  switch  back  to  let  the  express 
pass  along  the  main  line,  sees  a  little  child  playing  on 
the  main  track  a  hundred  yards  ahead.  He  realizes 
that  if  he  throws  the  switch  the  child  is  doomed.  It 
is  too  late  to  stop  the  express.  The  switchman  is  a 
father  with  a  little  child,  or  a  brother  with  a  little 
sister,  and  his  whole  paternal  or  fraternal  heart  goes 
out  to  that  little  human  atom  on  the  main  track.  It 
must  be  saved  at  any  cost,  and  he  proceeds  to  save 
it.  He  refrains  from  throwing  the  switch  back,  the 
express  comes  thundering  along,  swerves  into  the  sid- 
ing— and  the  child  is  saved.  Incidentally,  of  course, 
a  few  score  of  human  lives  are  snuffed  out  when  the 
express  crashes  into  the  freight  train  on  the  side-track 
and  is  reduced  to  matchwood  mixed  with  bloody 
human  flesh.  There  is  no  doubt  about  the  switch- 
man's humanity.  But  there  is  just  as  little  doubt 
about  his  lack  of  the  sense  of  proportion. 

It  is  a  deplorable  fact,  but  unfortunately  true,  that 
our  modern  schools  are  turning  out  specimens  of  this 
class  of  switchmen  by  the  scores.  They  intrude  them- 
selves upon  our  legislatures  and  haunt  our  public 
rostrums.  They  move  their  audiences  to  tears  with 


Liberty  and  Race  Culture.  409 

their  stories  of  the  many  grown-up  babes  which  their 
switching  methods  are  saving  from  destruction  on 
Nature's  railroad  track.  But,  on  the  question  of  the 
cost  to  the  multitudes  in  the  trains  switched  off  from 
Nature's  main  track  to  the  siding  specially  con- 
structed by  man,  they  remain  silent. 

Few  men,  indeed,  realize  to  what  lengths  this 
modern  trend  of  ours  to  apply  legislative  remedies 
to  existing  ills  without  counting  the  cost  of  the  rem- 
edies is  carrying  us.  Some  of  those  who  are  specially 
interested  in  combating  the  prohibition  movement  are 
apt  to  think  that  this  trend  begins  and  ends  with  the 
question  whether  men  shall  be  permitted  to  drink 
stimulants  or  not.  This  is  a  grave  mistake,  and  mis- 
leads many  men.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  prohibition 
movement,  important  as  it  may  appear  to  a  large 
number  of  people,  is  but  an  incidental  phase  of  a 
question  infinitely  more  far-reaching;  the  question, 
namely,  whether  man  generally  shall  live  his  individual 
life  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience 
and  according  to  the  light  of  his  own  reason  and 
intelligence.  We  believe  that  we  are  living  today  in 
the  age  of  individual  freedom,  yet  though  you  were 
to  name  the  worst  and  most  terrible  despots  that  ever 
tyrannized  their  fellow-men  in  bye-gone  days,  you 
could  not  mention  one  who  would  have  dared  to 
interfere  with  those  natural  personal  rights  of  man, 
the  sacrifice  of  which  is  today  demanded  of  us  by  an 


410  Liberty  and  Race  Culture. 

aggregation  of  theory-mad  individuals  calling  them- 
selves philanthropists,  who  believe  that  the  betterment 
of  mankind  can  only  be  accomplished  by  degrading 
the  individual  to  a  mere  automaton,  without  soul,  mind 
or  will  of  his  own,  whose  every  movement  must  be 
directed  by  some  governing  force  outside  of  him,  and 
whose  every  act  must  be  determined  by  rules  arbi- 
trarily established  by  a  body  of  his  self-styled  superiors. 
Don't  imagine,  gentlemen,  that  you  yourselves,  who 
may  oppose  this  peculiar  trend  of  our  time  in  one 
particular  form,  are  entirely  free  from  its  baneful 
effect  in  other  forms.  We  are  all  creatures  of  our 
age,  and  unconsciously  subject  in  one  respect  or 
other  to  its  subtle  influences. 

Take,  for  example,  the  comparatively  recent  de- 
velopment of  the  science  of  race  culture,  more  gen- 
erally known  as  eugenics.  No  one  will  doubt  the 
value  of  inculcating  eugenic  principles  by  educational 
means.  But  education  in  our  day  as  a  means  of  pro- 
moting betterment  is  at  a  discount.  People  have 
come  to  believe  that  law  can  compel  us  to  run,  before 
education  or  Nature  has  taught  us  how  to  walk. 
Hence,  among  other  things,  we  have  the  spectacle  of 
eugenic  marriage  laws,  which  prohibit  marriage  be- 
tween defectives.  That  Nature  has  equipped  the  de- 
fectives with  the  same  instinct  of  propagation  with 
which  she  has  endowed  her  more  perfect  creatures, 
and  that  the  prevention  of  marriage  by  human  law 


Liberty  and  Race  Culture.  411 

will  not  prevent  the  production  of  offspring  by  natural 
law,  does  not  enter  into  the  calculation  of  the  eugenic 
enthusiast,  or,  if  it  does,  he  proposes  in  cold  blood 
to  get  even  with  Nature  by  sterilizing  those  of  her 
creatures  which  he  considers  she  has  no  business  to 
create. 

Now  it  is  perfectly  true  that  the  attempt  to  enforce 
the  principle  of  eugenic  procreation  by  law  would 
be  worse  than  a  farce  without  the  application  of 
drastic  safeguards  of  the  kind  indicated.  But  where 
is  the  application  of  such  safeguards  going  to  stop? 
Which  of  us,  for  instance,  is  to  say  who  are  defectives 
and  who  are  not?  Dishonesty  is,  according  to  our 
social  notions,  a  sign  of  defectiveness.  Are  we  going 
to  sterilize  all  dishonest  men  and  women?  Untruth- 
fulness,  cruelty,  inordinate  greed  of  gain  and  a  score 
of  other  human  frailties  are  signs  of  defectiveness. 
Are  we  to  sterilize  all  untruthful,  cruel,  greedy  or 
otherwise  frail  beings  among  us?  Indeed,  if  we  did, 
would  any  of  us  be  left  to  perpetuate  the  human  race? 
Are  we  going  to  breed  human  beings  as  we  breed  our 
domestic  cattle?  And  if  so,  who  is  going  to  decide 
what  kind  of  human  cattle  we  desire  to  breed?  No 
two  men  will  agree  on  that  point.  Nature,  without 
man's  help,  breeds  pretty  good  cattle,  and  she  bred 
them  long  before  man  rose  to  be  very  much  more 
than  the  ordinary  beast  of  the  field.  When  he  grew, 
by  Nature's  grace,  to  the  status  of  lord  of  the  creation, 


412  Liberty  and  Race  Culture. 

he  pried  into  some  of  Nature's  secrets,  and  began  to 
use  them  in  order  to  produce  a  breed  of  cattle  fitted— 
for  what?  For  his  own  purposes.  He  did  not  do 
this  for  the  benefit  of  the  cattle,  but  for  his  own 
benefit.  The  bull  or  the  cow,  the  horse  or  the  hog  of 
today  may  be  better  adapted  to  our  human  needs 
than  the  type  of  ancestor  from  which  we  have  grad- 
ually evolved  them.  But  are  they,  from  any  other 
point  of  view,  particularly  from  their  own,  any  better, 
any  happier,  or  any  more  perfect  than  those  ancestors 
or  their  undomesticated  descendants?  Do  we  ask 
whether  the  bull  or  the  cow,  the  horse  or  the  hog 
we  breed  are  satisfied  with  the  existence  we  are  instru- 
mental in  giving  them?  No.  We  are  simply  a  super- 
species  determining,  for  purely  selfish  reasons,  what 
the  character,  the  attributes  and  the  qualities  of  all 
other  species  subordinate  to  us  shall  be,  and  until  a 
similar  super-species  appears  on  the  earth,  to  which 
we  humans  shall  become  subject,  a  like  treatment  of 
our  own  species  will  scarcely  be  practicable. 

Perhaps  you  will  say  that  such  a  super-species  of 
man  has  already  appeared  on  earth?  If  you  do,  I 
shall  not  quarrel  with  you.  There  are  strong  indica- 
tions that  it  has,  and  the  fact  is  one  of  the  most 
serious  problems  we  modern  humans  have  to  confront. 
That  species  of  superhuman  consists  of  those  among 
us  who  have  set  themselves  the  task  to  breed  a  human 
race  that  conforms  to  their  notion  of  what  the  human 


Liberty  and  Race  Culture.  413 

race  should  be.  At  what  cost  to  the  comfort,  the 
happiness  and  the  liberty  of  the  individual,  who  shall 
say?  He  is  not  even  given  a  vote  in  the  matter.  The 
question,  heretofore  a  purely  personal  one:  "Shall  I 
aim  to  live  longer  and  more  efficiently,  regardless  of 
the  pleasantness  of  my  life,  or  shall  I  aim  to  live 
more  pleasantly,  regardless  of  the  length  and  the 
efficiency  of  my  life?"  is  no  longer  to  be  determin- 
able  by  the  individual  concerned,  because  some  indi- 
viduals— and  this  must  be  freely  conceded — do  not 
always  determine  it  as  wisely  as  they  might.  And 
because  some  do  not  determine  it  wisely,  all  of  us  are 
to  be  deprived  of  the  liberty  of  determining  it,  and 
that  liberty,  hitherto  individual,  is  to  be  lodged  in  the 
community  as  a  whole. 

Some  say  the  bargain  is  a  good  one.  I  am  not  here 
to  contradict  them.  But  it  is  reasonable  to  ask  to 
what  lengths  such  a  bargain  is  going  to  carry  us.  If 
our  liberty  is  to  be  lodged  in  the  community  as  a 
whole,  how  long  will  it  be  before  our  lives  and  our 
property  are  treated  likewise?  Precedents  are  danger- 
ous, and  if  the  fact  that  some  men,  in  the  exercise  of 
what  they  erroneously  suppose  to  be  their  liberty,  in- 
fringe the  liberty  of  their  neighbor  is  a  good  reason 
why  the  community  should  abrogate  all  individual 
liberty  and  substitute  for  it  what  is  fancifully  termed 
the  liberty  of  human  society,  then  there  is  equally 
good  reason  for  the  community  to  assume  the  owner- 


414  Liberty  and  Race  Culture. 

ship  rights  to  all  individual  human  property  because 
some  men  violate  the  property  rights  of  their  neighbor. 
Indeed,  such  violations  consist  in  nothing  more  than 
the  infringement  by  one  individual  of  the  individual 
liberty  of  the  other — the  very  liberty  some  of  us  are 
proposing  that  the  community  shall  take  from  all  of 
us.  Hitherto  we  have  left  our  law  courts  to  deal 
with  these  violations.  When  the  millennium  dawns  we 
may  require  no  more  law  courts,  insane  asylums,  jails 
or  poorhouses,  but  I  believe  it  will  not  be  because 
individual  liberty  has  been  taken  from  us,  but  because 
men  will  have  learned  by  education  to  exercise  that 
liberty  according  to  the  contract  under  which  each 
has  guaranteed  it  to  the  other. 

Now  there  is  assuredly  no  man  worthy  of  the  name 
who  does  not  earnestly  desire  the  betterment  of  the 
human  race.  The  question  is  how  best  to  obtain  it,  and 
it  is  here  where  the  cultivation  of  the  sense  of  pro- 
portion becomes  of  paramount  importance  to  us.  The 
exercise  of  individual  freedom — and  I  speak  of  free- 
dom not  only  in  the  social  or  moral  but  also  in  the 
commercial  sense — is,  and  must  always  be,  dependent 
upon  our  due  observance  of  the  conditions  which  alone 
warrant  human  liberty.  Since  we  have  agreed  that  all 
men  are  entitled  to  equal  liberty,  the  main  condition 
under  which  we  exercise  our  liberty  is  that  we  shall 
respect  the  same  liberty  in  our  neighbor.  Analyze 
any  human  act  that  is  regarded  as  criminal,  and  you 


Liberty  and  Race  Culture.  415 

will  find  that  its  criminality  consists  in  one  thing,  and 
one  thing  only — the  infringement  of  the  individual 
liberty  of  others.  Murder  is  criminal,  because  it  in- 
fringes the  right  of  the  individual  to  his  life;  theft  is 
criminal,  because  it  infringes  the  right  of  the  individual 
to  his  property;  and  so  on  all  down  the  line.  To  give 
an  illustration  of  a  character  more  germane  to  this 
present  gathering:  As  business  men  you  claim — and 
rightly — the  liberty,  either  personally  or  jointly  with 
others,  to  acquire  commercial  wealth  and  power,  but 
if  you  use  that  commercial  wealth  and  power  to  deprive 
your  fellow  business  man  of  his  commercial  liberty,  or 
the  right  or  the  opportunity  to  exercise  it,  you  are 
committing  a  criminal  act.  It  is  not  the  acquisition 
or  possession  of  commercial  power,  but  its  misuse  that  is 
reprehensible.  Few  will  deny  that  what  is  known 
as  "big  business"  has  been  largely  the  making  of  this 
country  commercially.  It  has,  incidentally,  also,  as  we 
know,  called  into  existence  certain  abuses,  from  which 
individual  business  men,  and  through  them  the  com- 
munity at  large,  have  suffered  in  their  commercial 
liberty.  When  the  country  awoke  to  this  fact,  the 
cry  went  up  for  a  remedy  to  cure  the  evil,  and  the 
usual  thing  happened.  The  obvious  purpose  was  to 
stop  the  abuse  of  commercial  power  by  some,  in  order 
to  secure  the  commercial  liberty  of  all.  But  what 
was  done?  The  commercial  liberty  of  all  was  curtailed, 
in  order  to  stop  the  abuse  of  commercial  power  by 
some. 


416  Liberty  and  Race  Culture. 

It  is  just  another  instance  of  that  lack  of  the  sense 
of  proportion  which  I  illustrated  in  the  story  of  the 
switchman  and  the  little  child  playing  on  the  railroad 
track.  We  take  too  little  measure  of  comparative 
values,  with  the  natural  consequence  that  we  are  con- 
stantly risking  a  maximum  of  good  to  destroy  a  mini- 
mum of  evil.  And  the  great  question  is:  Shall  we, 
after  all,  succeed  by  such  methods  in  destroying  that 
minimum  of  evil?  Men  have  always  blundered,  and 
are  likely  to  blunder  as  long  as  the  human  race  lasts. 
But  is  it  not  just  the  freedom  to  blunder  which  has 
developed  man's  power  to  achieve?  To  take  from  all 
of  us  that  freedom,  and  everything  it  implies  in  the 
way  of  human  dignity,  human  initiative,  aye,  and 
human  efficiency,  which  is  the  fruit  of  human  initiative, 
for  the  purpose  of  curing  the  lack  of  efficiency  on  the 
part  of  some  of  us,  would  appear  to  be  the  poorest 
form  of  economy.  And  what  is  the  price  we  are  to 
pay  for  the  problematical  results  it  promises  to  a  few 
of  us  in  gain  of  human  efficiency?  Granted  even  that 
the  temporary  gain  were  certain,  what  about  the 
ultimate  balance  of  profit  and  loss? 

Every  man  naturally  regards  the  particular  freedom 
he  desires  to  exercise  with  a  keener  sense  of  apprecia- 
tion than  he  does  the  freedom  which  his  neighbor 
cherishes,  but  he  forgets  that,  in  permitting  the  curtail- 
ment of  that  neighbor's  freedom,  he  is  setting  a  prece- 
dent for  the  curtailment  of  his  own.  The  freedom 


Liberty  and  Race  Culture.  417 

of  one  of  us  is  the  freedom  of  all  of  us,  no  matter 
what  our  view  may  be  of  the  individual  wisdom  with 
which  that  freedom  is  exercised. 

The  time  has  gone  by  when  you,  as  business  men, 
can  afford  to  laugh  if  you  read  in  your  morning  news- 
paper that  a  law  is  proposed  forbidding  women  under 
a  certain  age  to  use  paint  or  cosmetics,  or  to  wear 
false  hair  or  earrings,  as  if  it  were  a  good  joke.  Per- 
haps, to  many  of  you,  who  don't  follow  the  actual  trend 
of  our  modern  legislation,  the  very  suggestion  of  such 
a  possibility  sounds  as  if  it  had  been  dug  up  from  the 
history  of  by-gone  Puritan  days.  Yet  the  enactment 
of  just  such  a  law  as  this  is  today  under  the  considera- 
tion of  the  legislature  of  one  of  our  neighboring  States. 
And  it  is  merely  one  of  hundreds  of  a  similar  kind 
with  which  our  lawgivers  are  gravely  concerning  them- 
selves, and  which  we  have  hitherto  laughed  at,  and 
sometimes  even  thoughtlessly  applauded,  without  re- 
alizing that,  by  our  indifference  to  such  monstrous 
interference  with  the  personal  doings  of  others,  we 
were  justifying  the  same  unrestrained  interference 
with  our  commercial  and  industrial  liberties,  and  in- 
deed with  all  that  which  touches  the  very  vitals  of  our 
public  and  private  existence.  We  don't  realize  that,  as 
business  men,  if  we  are  wise,  we  ought  to  protest  as 
vehemently  against  the  enactment  of  such  an  out- 
rageous law,  and  all  others  like  it,  as  we  would  protest 
against  a  law  providing  that  no  merchant  shall  sell 


418  Liberty  and  Race  Culture. 

or  purchase  any  commercial  commodity  above  or  below 
a  price  to  be  fixed  by  a  national  commission  of  super- 
visors. We  don't  realize,  in  short,  that  our  failure  to 
condemn  the  one  law,  however  trivial  the  individual 
rights  which  it  violates  may  appear  to  us,  implies  our 
acceptance  of  the  principle  involved  in  the  other, 
because  that  principle  is  the  same  in  both. 

And  why  don't  we  realize  it?  Because  we  have 
largely  ceased  to  recognize  that  the  safety  of  our 
own  rights  lies  in  our  protection  of  the  rights  of 
others.  And  what  rights  are  safe,  if  we  each  only 
contend  for  the  preservation  of  those  which  we  our- 
selves desire  to  exercise?  What  pleasures  will  remain 
for  any  of  us,  if  each  assumes  the  privilege  to  deny 
to  others  the  pursuit  of  those  pleasures  of  which  he 
himself  happens  to  disapprove? 

I  confess  frankly  that  a  good  deal  of  that  which 
affords  pleasure  to  my  neighbor  appears  as  the  rankest 
of  folly  to  me.  But  if  I  legislate  away  my  neighbor's 
freedom  to  exercise  the  pleasure  he  prizes  and  I  con- 
sider foolish,  what  is  to  prevent  him  in  his  turn  from 
legislating  away  my  freedom  to  exercise  the  pleasure 
I  prize  and  he  considers  foolish?  Some  believe  that 
this  is  indeed  what  we  are  coming  to,  and  that  when 
everybody  has  succeeded  in  abolishing  by  law  what  he 
considers  the  foolish  exercise  of  the  freedom  of  every- 
body else,  we  shall  have  reached  the  final  stage  of 
perfect  human  efficiency. 


Liherty  and  Race  Culture.  419 

Perhaps  we  shall.  And  still,  the  question  I  just 
propounded  remains  unanswered,  What  about  the  ulti- 
mate balance  of  profit  and  loss? 

Human  efficiency  is  a  great  thing.  But  I  know  a 
greater.  It  is  human  happiness,  and  human  happiness 
cannot  be  ground  out  by  the  legislative  efficiency  mill. 
It  is  largely,  if  not  entirely,  a  matter  of  individual 
human  choice,  guided  by  education  and  by  the  lessons 
we  learn  from  our  own  experience  and  the  experience 
of  others.  Our  choice  may  not  always  be  of  the  wisest, 
but,  if  we  were  all  to  become  as  wise  as  the  thirty 
thousand  odd  laws  annually  introduced  in  our  legis- 
latures promise  to  make  us,  it  wouldn't  be  long  before 
the  angels  would  descend  to  the  earth  weeping  at  their 
own  unfitness,  and  pleading  to  be  initiated  into  the 
mystery  of  human  perfection. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  advise  the  angels.  There  are 
some  among  us,  I  know,  who  feel  quite  capable  of 
doing  so.  I  do  not.  But  should  the  day  ever  arrive 
when  the  angels  come  to  us  to  learn  how  to  become 
perfect  beings,  I  would  at  least  venture  to  warn  them 
to  leave  their  sense  of  proportion  (if  they  have  any) 
behind  them.  It  doesn't  fit  in  our  modern  scheme  of 
human  betterment. 

At  any  rate,  I  believe  that  no  angel  with  any  sense 
of  proportion  would  dream  of  placing  the  whole  angel 
world  in  quarantine  because  some  angels  showed  symp- 
toms of  disease.  Yet  who  can  deny  that  this  is  indeed 


420  Liherty  and  Race  Culture. 

our  modern  human  tendency?  We  see  excess,  and 
immediately  proceed  to  prohibit  all  indulgence.  We 
note  the  ravages  of  disease,  and  promptly  confine  sick 
and  sound  in  the  same  general  hospital.  Abuses  creep 
into  business,  and  we  put  all  business  under  the  ban 
of  suspicion.  In  short,  let  our  newspapers  uncover 
any  sore,  social,  moral  or  commercial,  and  presto!  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  amateur  specialists  spring 
up  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  country  with  a 
legislative  serum  warranted  to  cure  it,  and  we  all  have 
to  be  inoculated  with  the  serum,  whether  we  individ- 
ually happen  to  suffer  from  the  sore  or  not. 

It  is  the  super-species  at  work  among  us,  claiming, 
as  it  does,  that  Nature  just  bungles  when  she  produces 
creatures  with  sores,  and  that  man,  represented  by  the 
super-species,  can  produce  a  human  breed  entirely 
free  from  sores,  provided  only  that  the  race  will 
submit  to  the  necessary  breeding  process  and  pay  all 
the  cost  involved  in  it.  Meanwhile  Nature  is  invited  to 
look  on  and  take  a  much-needed  lesson  in  man-making. 

Let  it  be  understood  that  I  am  not  endeavoring  to 
belittle  the  superior  character  of  this  super-species  of 
man,  nor  its  wisdom,  nor  its  ingenuity,  nor  its  sincerity, 
nor  even  its  ability  to  "put  one  over"  on  Nature,  any 
more  than  I  would  think  of  belittling  the  transcendent 
achievement  of  that  famous  character  in  fiction,  Frank- 
enstein, who,  having  learned  all  that  Nature  knows, 
and  added  to  it  a  goodly  portion  of  his  own  wisdom, 


Liberty  and  Race  Culture.  421 

succeeded  in  artificially  creating  a  living  human  being 
calculated  to  outrival  the  human  being  of  Nature's 
make.  But  I  am  forcibly  reminded  of  the  fact  that 
Frankenstein's  monster,  as  you  all  know  if  you  have 
read  Mrs.  Shelley's  classic  book,  ended  by  destroying 
all  that  his  own  creator  loved  best,  and  that  the  final 
laugh  was  on  Frankenstein,  not  on  Nature. 

Gentlemen,  this  final  laugh  is  a  very  serious  con- 
sideration, and  before  we  proceed  too  far  in  our  head- 
long race  for  supremacy  with  Dame  Nature  it  might 
be  well  for  us  to  take  thought  and  reflect  whether  this 
final  laugh,  after  all,  may  not  prove  to  be  on  us  and 
riot  upon  her. 


RE 

TC 

Tc 


All 
Rei 
Bo 


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